FIRE NEWS–Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center
For Immediate Release: July 31, 2013 6:30 p.m.
Contact: Media Desk, 541/416-6811 Website: www.fs.fed.us/r6/centraloregon/fire
Email: coidcincidentinformation@gmail.com
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Lightning brings several fires to area
Central Oregon – As expected, lightning moving across Central Oregon in the late afternoon kept initial attack firefighting resources busy responding to incidents on state and federal lands.
Crews responded to approximately 29 reports of smoke beginning around 3 p.m. By about 6 p.m. approximately 700 hundred lightning strikes had hit Central Oregon.
Airtankers dropped retardant and engines and crews responded to a fire, approximately 5 miles northeast of Sisters, OR that was threatening structures in the Squaw Creek Canyon Estates on private, state-protected lands. By 6:30 p.m. the crews had put dozer line completely around the fire.
Two small fires, approximately 3 to 4 miles west of the western edge of Cultus Lake, in the Three Sisters Wilderness were being responded to by helicopter rappel crews due to their remote nature. Approximately 4 miles northwest of the western edge of Cultus Lake, smokejumpers responded to a series of small fires around Little Round Top Mountain on the border of the Willamette National Forest and the Deschutes National Forest.
Two fires, one about 3 miles and one about 5 miles south of Lava River Cave, also had crews on them as the afternoon turned to evening. Near Suttle Lake, there was a fire about 2 ½ miles directly north of the lake and another fire approximately 1 ½ miles east of the lake’s eastern edge. Firefighters were responding.