Published 9:15 am Tuesday, July 20, 2021
Idaho’s Snake River Complex Fire and Oregon’s Bootleg Fire — the nation’s largest — have helped push the total number of acres burned more than one-third higher than the 2020 year-to-date total.
The National Interagency Fire Center July 19 reported 80 large wildfires burning more than 1.17 million acres in 13 states. Current large fires included 18 in Idaho, 20 in Montana, 8 in Oregon, and 7 each in California and Washington.
From 2020 to 2021, the number of large fires from Jan. 1 to July 19 increased from 29,008 to 35,086, NIFC said. Burned acres jumped from 1,809,976 to 2,537,744.
Ten-year averages to date were 31,774 fires and 3,347,133 acres.
The Bootleg Fire late July 19 stood at 364,113 acres and the Snake River Complex at 107,433 acres on July 20.
In California, the Beckwourth Complex was at 105,348 acres late July 19.
In Washington, the 71,512-acre Lick Creek Fire southwest of Asotin was the largest. The Chuweah Creek Fire, at 36,177 acres, was the second largest as of July 19.
All were lightning-caused.
The Bootleg Fire, northeast of Klamath Falls, Ore., was 30% contained as of July 19.
“We have a recurring pattern of extreme fire behavior in this incident where the fire travels up to five miles in a single burn period,” said Marcus Kauffman, public information officer with the Oregon Department of Forestry Incident Management Team 1. The fire in the past day added about 40,000 acres.
Multiple tree stands burning at once in their crowns, and various winds from clouds and weather the fire creates exemplify extreme behavior. Such weather conditions can prompt the main fire to advance, throwing embers and spotting.
“And since it’s critically dry, the spots start a new fire,” Kauffman said. “Then it will spot across a control line and we have to go chase.”
Crews have had some tough days, but have done a great job “putting in line and holding it in some amazingly difficult conditions,” he said.
The three-fire Snake River Complex was 70% contained on July 20. Public Information Officer Deana Harms said crews aimed to build on recent progress.
“They have already kind of connected the dots where they put in dozer line or where they have planned the easiest way of connecting that to hopefully achieve containment,” she said.
Dozers and other heavy equipment dig fire lines or remove nearby fuels. Ground crews increase a line’s effectiveness by burning additional fuel.
“They are going in and trying to work in more fire so it doesn’t push too hard against the line,” Harms said. Firefighters have burned mainly at night, but slightly cooler weather July 17-18 created “some windows where day operations could put some fire on the ground,” she said.
Daily incident reporting is available at https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/accessible-view/. NIFC tracks fires and trends at https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/nfn.
