CENTRAL POINT, Ore.– Oregon Department of Forestry says fire season is officially over for it’s lands in Jackson and Josephine County.
Over the course of this season, ODF crews battled 348 wildland fires that burned roughly 50,000 acres. Of those 348 fires, 106 were started by lighting strikes.
The agency says that with this season coming to a close, fire prevention regulations on such things as equipment use and debris burning have now been lifted.
However, along with other human errors and natural causes, the chance of a fire starting are always around, especially with an increase of prescribed burns.
That’s why the agency says it still plans on keeping a watchful eye on things through the winter should anything happen to get out of hand.
“We still have crews here and we still are responding to different calls either smoke investigations or burns that have gotten out of control,” said Natalie Weber, public information officer. “Thankfully we haven’t had too many of those.”
According to ODF, this fire season was long, lasting 151 days, but it only ranked as the 14th longest fire season for the agency since 1967. The longest was over 190 days set back in 1988.
ODF would also like to remind people intending to burn debris piles to check in with their local fire station to see if you need a permit to burn.
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