A3
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2021
Bootleg fi re grows, forces evacuation of wildlife station
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — The
nation’s largest wildfi re
torched more dry forest in
Oregon and forced the evac-
uation of a wildlife research
station Monday as fi refi ghters
had to retreat from the fl ames
for the ninth consecutive day
due to erratic and dangerous
fi re behavior.
Firefi ghters were forced to
pull back as fl ames, pushed by
winds and fueled by bone-dry
conditions, jumped fi re-retar-
dant containment lines and
pushed up to 4 miles into new
territory, authorities said.
The destructive Bootleg
fi re in south-central Oregon
is just north of the California
border and grew to more than
476 square miles, an area
about the size of Los Angeles.
Fire crews were also rush-
ing to corral multiple “slop
fi res” — patches of fl ames
that escaped fi re lines meant
to contain the blaze — before
they grew in size. One of
those smaller fi res was
already nearly 4 square miles
in size. Thunderstorms with
dry lightning were possible
Monday as well, heightening
the dangers.
“We are running fi re-
fi ghting operations through
the day and all through the
night,” said Joe Hessel, inci-
dent commander. “This fi re is
Bootleg Fire Incident Command
The Bootleg fi re burns at night in southern Oregon on Saturday.
a real challenge, and we are
looking at sustained battle for
the foreseeable future.”
On Monday, the fi re
reached the southern edge
of Sycan Marsh, a privately
owned wetland that hosts
thousands of migrating birds
and is a key research station
on wetland restoration.
The blaze, which was 25%
contained, has burned at least
67 homes and 100 buildings
while threatening thousands
more in a remote landscape
of forests, lakes and wildlife
refuges.
At the other end of the
state, a fi re in the mountains
of northeast Oregon grew to
nearly 19 square miles.
The Elbow Creek fi re
that started Thursday has
prompted evacuations in sev-
eral small, rural communi-
ties around the Grande Ronde
River about 30 miles south-
east of Walla Walla, Wash-
ington. It was 10% contained.
Natural features of the
area act like a funnel for
wind, feeding the fl ames and
making them unpredictable,
offi cials said.
In California, a growing
wildfi re south of Lake Tahoe
jumped a highway, prompt-
ing more evacuation orders,
the closure of the Pacifi c
Crest Trail and the cancella-
tion of an extreme bike ride
through the Sierra Nevada.
The Tamarack fi re, which
was sparked by lightning on
July 4, had charred about 36
square miles of dry brush and
timber as of Monday. Crews
were improving a line pro-
tecting Markleeville, a small
town close to the Califor-
nia-Nevada state line. It has
destroyed at least two struc-
tures, authorities said.
About 500 fi re personnel
were battling the fl ames Sun-
day, “focusing on preserving
life and property with point
protection of structures and
putting in containment lines
where possible,” the U.S.
Forest Service said.
Meteorologists predicted
critically dangerous fi re
weather with lightning possi-
ble through at least Monday
in both California and south-
ern Oregon.
“With the very dry fuels,
any thunderstorm has the
potential to ignite new fi re
starts,” the National Weather
Service in Sacramento, Cali-
fornia, said on Twitter.
Extremely dry condi-
tions and heat waves tied to
climate change have swept
the region, making wild-
fi res harder to fi ght. Climate
change has made the West
much warmer and drier in the
past 30 years and will con-
tinue to make weather more
extreme and wildfi res more
frequent and destructive.
Firefi ghters said in July
they were facing conditions
more typical of late summer
or fall.
Northern
California’s
Dixie fi re roared to new life
Sunday, prompting new evac-
uation orders in rural commu-
nities near the Feather River
Canyon. The wildfi re, near
the 2018 site of the deadli-
est U.S. blaze in recent mem-
ory, was 15% contained and
covered 39 square miles. The
fi re is northeast of the town
of Paradise, California, and
survivors of that horrifi c fi re
that killed 85 people watched
warily as the new blaze
burned.
Pacifi c Gas & Electric
equipment may have been
involved in the start of the
Dixie fi re, the nation’s largest
utility reported to California
regulators.
PG&E said in a report
Sunday to the California Pub-
lic Utilities Commission that
a repair man responding to
a circuit outage on July 13
spotted blown fuses in a con-
ductor atop a pole, a tree lean-
ing into the conductor and fi re
at the base of the tree.
The Dixie fi re has grown
to nearly 47 square miles,
largely in remote wilderness.
The utility said investigators
with the California Depart-
ment of Forestry and Fire
Protection have collected
equipment from the location.
PG&E equipment has
repeatedly been linked to
major wildfi res, including
a 2018 fi re that ravaged the
town of Paradise and killed
85 people.
At least 16 major fi res
were burning in the Pacifi c
Northwest alone, according
to the Forest Service.
Number of unhealthy air days in state increases as wildfi res grow
PROTECT YOURSELF AGAINST
POOR AIR QUALITY
• If possible, stay inside, close windows or use air condi-
tioners (if you have them) with the intake closed. Also, run
a high-effi ciency particulate air fi lter, or an electro-static
precipitator.
• If you don’t have air conditioning and it’s too hot to stay
indoors with the windows closed, fi nd a clean-air space in
your community, such as a library, shopping mall or com-
munity center. If poor air quality continues overnight, you
may need to book a hotel room, or stay with a friend who
has air conditioning.
• Don’t use anything that burns, like candles or gas stoves.
And don’t smoke cigarettes indoors, which contributes to
the already poor air quality.
• Refrain from vacuuming or doing other activities that stir
up dust.
• The American Lung Association recommends placing damp
towels under doors or in other crevices where polluted air
might leak in.
• Don’t rely on masks for protection. Most non-medical grade
masks won’t protect lungs from the fi ne particulates of wildfi re
smoke. Bandanas are equally ineff ective.
• Although respirators, like those labeled “NIOSH” and the
rating of N95 or N100, can protect against smoke, they must
be properly fi tted by a trained professional and are in scarce
supply due to the coronavirus pandemic. Offi cials also have
urged that these masks be reserved for medical and other
frontline workers.
• Ultimately, the agency recommends limiting exposure to
smoky air as much as possible.
• Avoid outdoor activities, especially exercise, when air
quality is unhealthy and hazardous.
• Asthma suff erers or those with other respiratory problems
should follow their breathing management plans or talk to
their doctors. Have an adequate supply of medication on
hand (the Oregon Health Authority recommends a fi ve-day
supply).
• If you spend time in a car, turn the air conditioning on
recirculate.
— Oregon Health Authority
By KALE WILLIAMS
The Oregonian
In what will come as a sur-
prise to few Oregonians who
have endured the past two
wildfi re seasons, the state is
experiencing an increasing
number of days with poor air
quality.
An annual report on smoke
trends in Oregon, released last
week, drove home that reality.
“Wildfi res are becom-
ing larger and more frequent
across the Western U.S.,
which is causing more smoky
days with poor air quality,”
said Ali Mirzakhalili, Air
Quality Division administra-
tor for the Oregon Depart-
ment of Environmental Qual-
ity, which produces the report.
“Increasing
wildfi re
smoke from Oregon, as well
as California, Idaho, Wash-
ington and even British
Columbia, means more com-
munities across the state are
now experiencing higher con-
centrations of (particulate
matter),” Mirzakhalili said in
a statement.
The report looked at 24
locations across the state,
including Bend, Medford,
Klamath Falls and Portland,
where the state monitors air
quality and divides it into
six categories: good, mod-
erate, unhealthy for sensi-
tive groups, unhealthy, very
unhealthy and hazardous.
The report found that 2020
actually had a shorter wild-
fi re season than the average
year, but air quality plum-
meted in the months after
massive blazes erupted across
the state after the Labor Day
windstorm.
Concentrations of fi ne
particulate matter, known
as PM2.5, were “measured
higher during September and
October 2020 than any other
time since DEQ began moni-
toring air quality in 1985,” the
agency said.
But it wasn’t just last year,
according to the state.
“Overall trends indicate
that the number of days in
which air quality measures
‘Unhealthy for Sensitive
Groups or Worse,’ as well as
concentrations of PM 2.5, are
continuing to increase,” the
report said.
From 1987 to 2014, Bend
saw just three days with air
quality rated as “unhealthy.”
From 2015 and 2020, the cen-
tral Oregon city recorded 13
days with “unhealthy” air, fi ve
days with “very unhealthy”
air and six days with air des-
ignated in the worst category
of “hazardous.”
Klamath Falls, which is
under an air quality advisory
from smoke produced by the
huge Bootleg fi re burning to
the northeast of the city, saw
a similar increase. The larg-
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est population center in south-
eastern Oregon saw 20 days
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