2:02 p.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.”

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.

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