Oregon’s Governor Kate Brown invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act Wednesday morning in response to the 10,000-acre Wrentham Market Fire that broke out in Wasco County Tuesday. The fire is seven miles east of Dufur, Oregon and 11 miles southeast of The Dalles.
The Wasco County Sheriff’s Office ordered evacuations affecting 70 to 100 residents.
The fire is on Wrentham Market Road burning wheat and brush in the Columbia Rural Fire Protection Area. About 20 residences are threatened and 1 barn was destroyed. Aviation resources used on the fire have included helicopters, as well as single engine and multi-engine air tankers.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal’s Red Incident Management Team assumed command at 9 a.m. June 30 and will work to bring additional resources from counties around Oregon to assist in the response.
Three task forces, totaling 41 people, 12 engines, and 3 water tenders from Multnomah, Washington, and Yamhill Counties, arrived Wednesday morning. The fire was reported Tuesday afternoon.
The declaration made by Gov. Brown cleared the way for the State Fire Marshal to mobilize firefighters and equipment to assist local communities battling the fire.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Kelly.
Intelligent planning and management seems to be missing in Oregon, because the “wisdom, if any” of the economic production planning process seems to be subordinated to idealized production goals. Hello, hello! Planning does not equal production. Why are Oregon forests planted densely, if half or more will burn and approach zero-production. Who is responsible for thinking and reasoning? Different planting goals probably equal greater economic production.
Forestry is a holly-cow in Oregon. Why not change goals to economic output? Department of Forestry should not be in-charge.
I admit that “Blow your knee off with a Shotgun, and Call if “Progress” is an accurate way to describe a lot of Oregon Government.
But I see them doing some things right. Pacific Power has a contractor that clears a 10 foot area around the power poles that have transformers, because sometimes the transformers explode.
I am in the process of re-planting that area with Creeping Myrtle, and had to ask the landscape contractor to let me do the landscaping.
They insisted they had to rip out the Creeping Myrtle, along with the blackberry, or Insurance Something.
Creeping Myrtle is a Magic Plant relative to wildfire. Somehow manages to not die, even when it gets no water & spends a summer in the hot sun.
Lotta lightning over there now.
https://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;ts=0;y=44.2136;x=-121.7312;z=8;d=2;dl=2;dc=0;