ODF Central Oregon District crews are preparing for additional thunderstorms into this weekend. Thursday afternoon’s National Weather Service forecast calls for thunderstorms with possible gusty winds while Friday’s forecast anticipates renewed lightning strikes but with some precipitation coming with storms. Low humidity expected Saturday could increase fire potential through the weekend.
ODF John Day Unit crews responded to 1 new fire in the region Wednesday that was quickly controlled.
Much attention in the region is being focused on the Buckhorn Fire. The fire, which began on BLM land about 13 miles north of Clarno on Tuesday, became the largest wild fire of 2010 thus far in Oregon at 2,200 acres currently. Resources for this fire are dispatched through the Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center in Redmond, which draws on many jurisdictions for fire suppression response. A federal government “Type 2” incident management team is assuming command of the fire Thursday, with a fire camp based at a high school in Fossil.
As of Thursday, ODF resources are not assigned to the Buckhorn Fire, as the fire scene is several miles away from a fire protection district affiliated with ODF. ODF provides fire protection services on 15.8 million acres of land in Oregon (roughly one-quarter of the state), including state-owned lands, private lands within a fire protection district and also provids fire services under contract protecting BLM-owned forests in western Oregon.
Kevin Weeks – Oregon Department of Forestry