Resources ‘stretched’ thin amid ongoing wildfires across Oregon
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — As wildfires continue to rage across Oregon, including in Washington and Clackamas counties, KOIN 6 News is touching base with firefighters who tell us this work can be draining for crews.
The U.S. Forest Service predicted Pacific Northwest fires will keep burning and new ones will spark as the wildfire season progresses.
“The state of Oregon is stretched right now as far as resources,” said Stefan Meyers, a spokesperson for Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue.
Meyers is working with crews on the Lee Falls Fire burning near Gaston in Washington County. He said there’s still a long road ahead this fire season.
“We have an incident management teams that are coming in from the southern part of our state, from Alaska and all over to help because it has been a challenging and, so far, even long fire season,” Meyers said.
Some of that help from within the state is coming from Clackamas Fire District.
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“This year we have been I think busier. But we all kind of known since 2020 really, that wildfires weren’t going to slow down,” said Izak Hamilton, a spokesperson with Clackamas Fire District.
Hamilton said they’ve got nearly 25 people at the Town Gulch Fire in Canyon City, one person at the Diamond Complex Fire in Umpqua National Forest and six people at the Elk Lane Fire.
“Our operations staff, realistically, it kind of starts at the bottom with these fantastic men and women that we have our firefighters being willing to come in cover those shifts, work a little extra overtime,” Hamilton said.
By learning what fire crews did during the 2020 wildfires in Oregon, wildland fire departments have changed the way they train their crews, Hamilton said.
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“We have so many of our men and women that are not only structural firefighters but trained for wildland as well,” he said.
Though firefighters have been working those extra hours to help with fires outside their jurisdiction, there’s no shortage of activity at home base, such as the South End Fire in Clackamas that sparked early Friday morning but got under relative control later in the day. Hamilton said they’ve still got their own community covered.
“It’s just this giant network that you don’t see until we have this kind of a situation. Things are going to get taken care of,” he said.
There are still some Level 3 “Go Now” Evacuation orders in place at the Lee Falls Fire burning near Henry Hagg Lake. For the most up-to-date evacuation zones, residents can visit the Oregon Department of Emergency Management Map.
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