Evacuation orders are in effect tonight for residents near the Douglas Complex fire which is burning near the Douglas and Josephine county lines.
NBC-5’s Roma Villavicencio went to the command post at Glendale today and has more.
An evacuation was ordered just a little more than an hour ago, affecting residents who live west ofMcCulloughCreek Road all the way to Reuben.
The fires started when a lightning storm hit Southern Oregon early Friday morning.
Tonight their biggest task at hand is getting all the fires out.
This cloud of smoke, a build up of 46 lightning-caused fires that broke out in Douglas county early Friday morning.
“Last night they spent all night triaging the fires, trying to figure out which fires needed resources first.”
Angela Johnson with the Oregon Department of Forestry says about 400 firefighters from all over the state have been helping contain the more than 7,000 acres burning near the Douglas and Josephine county lines.
Our main concern now is identifying where they’re all at. We know we have fires out there that we haven’t identified, so we’re using aircraft to do that kind of detection, and then this area also has a very good detection camera system.”
As scary as the scene may appear, residents nearby say they’re not worried.
“I don’t really see it blowing all the way into the town here.”
Johnson says that while fire crews from across the Pacific Northwest are helping battle the fires,some even on stand by at Glendale high, they’ll be ready to go and protect the forest.
“We’ll probably be here for our full two week assignment.”
Johnson told me that several of the fires are in hard to reach forest areas and the winds are increasing those fires.
Again a number of homes in the area are being evacuated west ofMcCulloughCreek Road.
Roma Villavicencio NBC-5 news
Here’s a closer look at the area that is under an evacuation tonight.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is evacuating all homes West of McCullough road to reuben.
residents east of mcullough creek road to the mill just outside of glendale are asked to prepare for a potential evacuation.
crews are working hard to fight the blaze….
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