In Shifting Winds, Central Oregon Wildfire Grows to Almost 30,000 Acres
The Cram fire was first reported on Sunday, burning in vegetation of grass, brush and juniper along U.S. Route 97, a north-south highway, near the sparsely populated area of Willowdale in Jefferson County.
By Monday afternoon, the fast-moving flames covered 4,500 acres, prompting evacuations in the county and in adjacent Wasco County, according to the Oregon State Fire Marshal agency. The state fire marshal, Mariana Ruiz-Temple, called the weather conditions 'extremely challenging' in a statement.
'The wind was all day 25 miles per hour, and the terrain is a lot of hills, ridges and valleys, which makes it worse,' Gert Zoutendijk, a spokesman for the fire marshal, said in an interview.
'The wind shifted, and basically it took the fire and ran,' he said.
By early Tuesday, the fire had grown to about 28,600 acres, according to Central Oregon Fire Info, an interagency dispatch service. Firefighters and other crews, including from the Bureau of Land Management and Oregon Department of Forestry, installed containment lines and used air support from tankers and helicopters to cool hot spots, the service said.
But despite those efforts, shifting winds propelled the fire over bulldozer lines that had been cut into the ground to prevent the spread of flames, Mr. Zoutendijk said.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
an hour ago
- CBS News
Deer Creek Fire over 14,000 acres, has damaged 13 structures; expected to move northeast through Colorado
A large wildfire that sparked in southeastern Utah last week and crossed into southwestern Colorado this week has damaged over a dozen structures, and now fire officials believe winds will push that fire deeper into Colorado on Wednesday. The Deer Creek Fire was mapped at 14,760 acres and is still 7% contained, Utah Fire Info, a task force comprising state and federal agencies, said Wednesday morning. That means it's grown by over 1,000 acres overnight, while containment had not grown since Tuesday morning. "Last night, strong winds caused an increase in fire activity that pushed the fire further into Colorado. No additional evacuations have occurred, and firefighters will have a presence in Paradox assessing the fire's location and taking suppression actions," Utah Fire Info wrote on Facebook Wednesday morning. "Today, afternoon thunderstorms are again expected out of the west/southwest, with wind gusts up to 60mph possible. Fire crews continue to assess the western edge of the fire and work to cool any hot spots as the fire moves northeast." The buildings damaged by the fire include 11 private structures, a USDA Forest Service structure, and a communications site, according to Utah Fire Info. The Deer Creek Fire is the largest of several wildfires in southwestern Colorado that have thrown huge clouds of smoke into the air and prompted a disaster declaration from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, air quality alerts, and evacuations in and around Montrose County. Over 400 people are now involved in the effort to extinguish the fire, and crews are using helicopters, fixed-wing airtankers, dozers, and other ground equipment. Further north, the Wright Draw Fire, at 448 acres, and the nearby Turner Gulch Fire, at almost 14,000 acres, north of Gateway, Colorado, are also largely uncontained. To the east, the Sowbelly Fire is at 2,274 acres, but crews have seen gains in containment efforts, which are at 13% as of Wednesday morning. And the South Rim Fire, near the southern end of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, is at 4,160 acres. No containment figures for that fire were immediately available.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Time-lapse video of Dragon Bravo Fire shows Grand Canyon's North Rim in flames
A time-lapse video captured the wildfire burning on the Grand Canyon's North Rim, which destroyed the historic Grand Canyon Lodge and forced the shutdown of the Canyon's north side. Fire crews tried to contain the Dragon Bravo Fire, which sparked July 4 after a lightning strike. National Park Service officials initially managed the fire as a controlled burn, but hot and windy weather conditions fueled the fire and caused it to spread rapidly. Republic photographer Michael Chow captured the wildfire in a time-lapse video taken July 14 from the Canyon's South Rim. Chow set up his camera on a tripod, pointed it at the smoke, hoping it cleared at some point and and shot a photo every four seconds for 4 1/2 hours. Chow asked multiple people where exactly the fire was burning so he could point his camera in the right direction, because once he started the time-lapse, he couldn't change the orientation. Chow finished with just under 4,000 photos that were sequenced together for the time-lapse video. By July 14, the fire had scorched 5,716 acres and was still 0% contained, according to InciWeb, a federal wildfire tracking website. An estimated 70 structures were gone, park officials said. No injuries were reported. Gov. Katie Hobbs and Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., have since called for an investigation into the agency's early response to the wildfire. A National Park Service official said the fire was "expertly handled." Republic reporters Perry Vandell and Rey Covarrubias contributed to this article. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Fire in Grand Canyon: Time-lapse video shows North Rim in flames in AZ
CNN
11 hours ago
- CNN
Grand Canyon lodge: National Park Service defends the handling of lightning-sparked blaze that destroyed historic lodge
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona (AP) — The National Park Service is defending its handling of a lightning-sparked wildfire that destroyed the nearly century-old Grand Canyon Lodge and dozens of historic cabins, saying containment lines had been built around the blaze and crews were prepared to conduct defensive firing operations. But then came a sudden and extreme shift in the wind that far exceeded forecast conditions, the agency recounted Tuesday in an email sent to The Associated Press. 'The Dragon Bravo Fire began July 4 as a lightning-caused wildfire and was under a full suppression strategy from the outset,' the agency said, adding that the team first assigned to the fire 'effectively managed the fire through its initial phase' and that Grand Canyon National Park requested additional resources as fire activity increased. The Park Service had posted on social media last week that the fire was being managed under a 'confine and contain strategy,' which allowed for the natural role of fire on the landscape while minimizing the risk to infrastructure and other values. Arizona's governor and members of the state's congressional delegation called for an investigation as the Park Service immediately came under scrutiny after the lodge and other historic buildings were destroyed. The flames were fanned by uncharacteristic nighttime gusts that topped 40 mph (65 kph), said fire information officer Stefan La-Sky. 'Normally the fire 'lays down' at night because of higher humidity and lower temperatures, but this thing was really wind-driven,' La-Sky said Tuesday, adding that it is extremely dry across the region. The weather was more favorable Tuesday as hundreds of firefighters worked to stop the Dragon Bravo Fire from consuming any more of the buildings along the park's less-visited North Rim, including a water pumping station that supplies the South Rim, La-Sky said. A separate blaze dubbed the White Sage Fire was burning further north. Together, the two fires have charred more than 90 square miles (233 kilometers). That is more than twice the size of the entire Walt Disney World complex in Florida. Tourists standing along the park's popular South Rim on Tuesday watched plumes of smoke rise above the sweeping vista, filling the canyon with a thick haze and pooling in its depths. 'By the afternoon, it was completely socked in,' Christi Anderson said of the smoke that had filled the canyon the day before. 'You couldn't see anything, none of that. It was crazy.' Anderson was visiting from California and considered herself lucky because she had shifted her reservation to the South Rim in the preceding days. Otherwise she would have been among those forced to evacuate. Park officials have closed access to the North Rim, a more isolated area that draws only about 10% of the Grand Canyon's millions of annual visitors. The park spans more than 1,900 square miles (4,920 square kilometers). Neither blaze had any containment, and La-Sky said it was too early for his team to offer a timeline. 'We're always at the mercy of Mother Nature,' he said. Over the years, managers at the Grand Canyon have successfully used fire to benefit the landscape, with the park having what some experts say is an exemplary fire management program that has tapped both prescribed fire and wildfires to improve forest health. Andi Thode, a professor of fire ecology and management at Northern Arizona University and the lead at the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, said park managers have even re-burned some areas in multiple places over the years to create what she called 'one of the best jigsaw puzzles' on public land. She noted that fire behavior decreased significantly when the Dragon Bravo Fire burned into the footprint of a previously burned area. 'So creating that heterogeneity across the landscape, using fire is a really critical tool moving forward to be able to help in the future with these wildfire events that are happening at the worst time in the worst weather conditions with the driest fuels,' Thode said. The park's 2025 fire management plan notes the Grand Canyon's designation as a World Heritage Site, referencing cultural and natural resources, spiritual and inspirational qualities, recreational opportunities and other values. 'It is the Fire Management Program's mission to manage wildland fires to preserve, enhance and (where necessary) restore these values,' the plan reads. Those areas that have the most infrastructure and are among the most highly used by the public make up just over 1% of the park. According to the plan, managing wildfires for resource benefit objectives within these areas is not permitted and that the overall intent within these areas is to 'protect life and property in its natural setting.' The fire exclusion areas listed in the plan include the developed area of the North Rim. Aside from outlining policies for responding to wildfires and planning for prescribed fires, the document includes links to tools that fire managers can use for assessing risk. The lodge and surrounding cabins were among the more than 370 structures at the park that were considered high risk. Another 238 structures fall in the moderate risk category. The Park Service reiterated Tuesday that the safety of the public and firefighters come first. 'Firefighters are continuing to respond to this fire in the safest way possible putting their lives and the lives of the community, park visitors, and park employees ahead of buildings.' the agency said.
