OREGON – Friday, Governor Tina Kotek held a briefing on the current state of Oregon’s wildfire season. She said this year’s season is off to an aggressive start.
Governor Kotek was joined by state wildlife and emergency response leaders, going over the multiple fires in our region and beyond.
During the meeting, a statewide view of Oregon’s fire situation was shown. ODF representatives say that unfavorable weather conditions are expected the next few days, including lightning.
In our region, ODF said aggressive initial attacks on large fires, have resulted in containment. But Governor Kotek said in central and eastern parts of the state, fires are still popping up and growing. Governor Tina Kotek said,
“In just this past week, I’ve declared five conflagrations, thousands of lightning strikes this week resulted in over 100 new fires detected just so far, wildland firefighting resources have been working around the clock to detect fires early and put them out as quickly as possible.”
Many structures have been lost and more are threatened in these areas. ODF said a majority of the fires, before the new lightning caused ones, were human related. Governor Kotek has declared an emergency declaration for the whole state through October, as well as individual conflagration declarations. She said they are doing everything they can with the resources they have.
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