The Incident Command Team in charge of battling the Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire in Oregon, had good news to report Sunday morning. As of Saturday night, the 413,765-acre fire is 96% contained.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) - The Incident Command Team in charge of battling the Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire in Oregon, had good news to report Sunday morning. As of Saturday night, the 413,765-acre fire is 96% contained.
In an update posted to Facebook Sunday morning, Operations Section Chief Trainee Joe Tone said over the next day and a half crews will make sure the north side of the fire is extra secure as they begin to back out of the area.
At the east side of the fire, crews added more containment and have been able to do mop-up. Tone said the threat to Summer Lake is "essentially gone."
Crews have been patrolling the fire's south edge looking for smoke, but haven't seen much. Tone warned that smoke will still come from trees and logs burning inside the fire's perimeter.
The Bootleg Fire is burning 15 miles west of Beatty, Ore., northeast of Klamath Falls.
South of the Bootleg Fire, two other small fires are burning - the Walrus fire and the Yainax Fire. The Walrus fire is burning 10.5 miles north of Bonanza and the Yainax Fire is burning 10 miles northeast of Bonanza.
There's been no containment reported on either fire. As of Sunday morning, the Walrus Fire was 75 acres and the Yainax Fire was 88 acres. Officials say neither fire has grown in the last two days and crews are beginning mop-up efforts on them.
Even larger than the Bootleg Fire is the Dixie Fire burning in Butte County, California. Sunday morning, Cal Fire said the 463,477-acre fire is the second-largest in California's history. The fire is 20% contained and crews hope it will be fully contained by Aug. 20, 2021. The fire has destroyed 404 structures.
KOIN Meteorologist Joseph Dames said the increase in relative humidity in Oregon and Washington means there won't be much smoked throughout the state. He said wildfires shouldn't be as active has the have been recently, due to the cooler and more humid weather.
