Wildfires continue to burn out of control in much of Oregon, California, and Washington, though they aren’t expanding as fast as they did during last Monday’s wind storm. Most of the Northwest is under a blanket of smoke that is hazardous to our health; the good news is the smoke is cooling temperatures by 10 degrees or so, thus reducing the rate of spread of the fires.
About 1.5 percent of Oregon has burned in the last week with an unusual number of fires burning nearly to the borders of cities such as Ashland, Medford, Oregon City, Roseburg, Salem, and Springfield. Click image for a larger view. Map from Firemappers.
Yesterday’s national situation report was the first I have seen this year in which the number of acres burned exceeded the ten-year average through this date. I downloaded the previous ten years of September 13 reports and found that the Pacific Coast states, central Rockies, and Southwest have all seen more acres burn than the ten-year average, but Alaska, the Northern Rockies, Great Basin, East, and South are well below average. Continue reading
