Bootleg Fire grows to nearly 400,000 acres

Posted on Categories WildfireTags ,

27 miles northeast of Klamath Falls, Oregon

2:02 p.m. PDT July 22, 2021

Bootleg Fire map
Bootleg Fire map. The white line was the perimeter at 8 p.m. PDT July 21, 2021. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite at 3:48 a.m. PDT July 22, 2021.

The Bootleg Fire 27 miles northeast of Klamath Falls, Oregon grew Wednesday to 399,359 acres in spite of the higher humidity and reduced wind speeds. The less extreme fire behavior gave firefighters the opportunity to construct and improve firelines. The forecast for Thursday afternoon should enable those activities to continue, but a warming and drying trend is expected into the weekend.

As of July 21, $41.5 million has been spent on the fire and 184 structures have been destroyed.

“Fire crews and support personnel have made significant progress in containing this fire in the last few days.”said Joe Prummer, Incident Commander trainee of Pacific Northwest Incident Management Team 2. “However, we still have a long road ahead of us to ensure the safety of the surrounding communities.”

Bootleg fire
July 21, 2021. InciWeb photo.

As the need for night operations on the southern zone decreases, those resources are being moved to the day shift or sent home for rest as they time-out.

The latest evacuation information can be found at a website maintained by Klamath and Lake Counties.

Satellite photo fires in CA WA OR

Resources assigned to the fire Wednesday evening included 49 hand crews, 199 fire engines, and 20 helicopters for a total of 2,268 personnel.

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Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.

12 thoughts on “Bootleg Fire grows to nearly 400,000 acres”

  1. Bill, The Bootleg Fire was approaching Sycan (sp?) Marsh owned by The Nature Conservancy where for many years significant effort was made to get it fire ready so as to reduce it’s impact and to slow a major fire should one occur. If the Bootleg reached it, are you able to find out what impact the fire had on the property? Did years of shaded fuel breaks, ladder fuel removal and Rx burns make a difference?

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    1. TK, from what I can tell a majority of the preserve has already been impacted, it appears the NE corner and a large pocket are unburned as of now.

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    2. I keep a browser window open to the search terms “wildfire news” and the Sycan preserve has been the subject of several recent articles.

      It basically sounds like they were less impacted.

      Sitting on the burning edge of a fire like the Bootleg, has got to be rough.

      In the aerial view taken from a distance, there are dark green areas and light beige areas.

      Do the light beige areas indicate a desert or other terrain with reduced combustible fuel ?

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      1. Probably, depending on where you’re looking. Some of that Fremont/Winema area in southern Oregon is marshy, or forested, but the farther east you go the more sagebrush and PJ and high desert you see. I got stuck in actual quicksand one year while flyfishing. It was just like the cartoons but no cowboy to lasso me and pull me out.

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    1. YES — that sat image map is a lovely image to show people when explaining that a 3000-acre fire does not mean there are 3000 acres ON fire. Or, in this case, 400,000 acres.

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    2. The delineated area on the map illustrates the area that has burned. Of course these fires burn at various levels of intensity. Some portions burn completely (nuked) while others (let’s hope it’s a bunch) only experience the partial burning of well behaved combustion. Certainly within that huge 400,000 acre zone, there will be islands of unburned area, too.

      So yeah, generally this beast has burned 400,000 acres, and to Kelly’s point, that does not mean that 400,000 acres are currently on fire, as is so often misrepresented by media outlets.

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      1. @Ranger, yeah, 400,000 acres on fire with 100% of the wildlife dead within the perimeter. I’m repeatedly stunned by the number of people who think that.

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      2. “The Bootleg Fire 27 miles northeast of Klamath Falls, Oregon grew Wednesday to 399,359 acres . . .”

        The fire perimeter (400,000 acres) does NOT imply or suggest that the fire has occurred on 400,000 acres. Within that 400,000 perimeter there will be islands of forest, etc., that has not burned, or burned lightly, including back burns. Unfortunately, this is never made clear in news reports of wildfire. Instead we are left with the impression that the fire has burned 400,000 acres. The BAER, once released, should provide acre tally for fire intensity.

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