The fire, pushed by winds from the south, has the potential to move 4 miles (6 kilometers) or more in an afternoon and there is concern it could merge with the smaller, yet still explosive Log Fire, said Rob Allen, incident commander for the blaze. The Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in the U.S., has now torched an area larger than New York City and has stymied firefighters with erratic winds and extremely dangerous fire behavior. (AP) - More people living along the eastern edge of an Oregon wildfire were told to evacuate late Thursday as the inferno began spreading rapidly and erratically in hot afternoon winds and threatened to merge with a nearby, smaller fire that had also exploded in size. They also use the emergency alert system to send messages on television and radio and send out push-alerts to people who opt-in.PORTLAND, Ore. “We’re leveraging the federal IPAWS system, the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, so that if we do need to do large scale evacuations, we can get messages out to cellphones based on their location and what cell phone tower they’re utilizing”. Phelps says they’ve adopted several solutions to communicate information about threats at the state, county and city levels. “We work really closely with our regional FEMA partners out of the Seattle area in Washington State and then we have a lot of great connectivity with FEMA headquarters back in DC and with Administrator Criswell, who came to Oregon this past summer.”Ī key part of their disaster preparation process is to make sure they can communicate with the public. He said their relationships need to be “strong” and they extend beyond Oregon. “We’ve had two regular touchpoints with FEMA over the last several years here in Oregon from ice storms to COVID, of course, preparing for the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and that threat that is looming off our coast.” At the top of that list of partners is FEMA. Phelps says his team stays in constant contact with its partners to make sure people are ready for potential disasters. It’s our responsibility as individuals, neighborhoods, and communities to be aware of hazards and risks, to prepare for the critical period immediately following a disaster, and to make sure that disaster preparedness has the high priority it deserves”, the site says. “Under the best of circumstances, government agencies and other emergency organizations can’t protect you from disaster. The Oregon Office of Emergency Management says on its website, the beauty and splendor of Oregon make it a great place to live, but it warns that it is a place that experiences its share of extreme weather, floods, wildfires, earthquakes, and even tornadoes. It leads to the closures of state forests and natural areas where people gather to recreate, especially during the summer months. The smoke takes a toll on those who have medical conditions, like asthma. are blanketed in wildfire smoke every summer into the fall”, Phelps said. “You don’t have to live in Oregon and have a wildfire burning on your doorstep to be impacted by wildfires,” Parts of the Pacific Northwest, parts of the entire western half of the U. He said it’s no longer just how we respond to a fire, “ it’s what we’re doing before a fire starts that reduces the exposures, reduces the fuel loads in our forests, and makes our homes more able to sustain impacts from wildfires.”īut the impacts of more frequent wildfires extend well beyond the places where they happen. “As we see more impacts of climate change that are increasing our wildfire risk and increasing our risk of excessive temperatures, we need to get much smarter and more innovative, with how we reduce our risk.”

Phelps said it’s important for every stakeholder to know what their role is. The ability to successfully respond to these fires is predicated on coordination, relationships, and partnerships. We’re now having wildfire responses year-round.” These fires, he said, “aren’t just now burning during a typical fire season which, in Oregon, historically has been, July through maybe September. The Pacific temperate rainforests of western North America is the largest temperate rain forest region on the planet. Parts of the Pacific Northwest center, considered rainforests, now experience wildfires,” said Andrew Phelps in an interview. “We’re now having fires burning in areas that typically didn’t burn. But the Director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management said that’s changing –rapidly. When you think of rainforests, wildfires don’t typically come to mind.

Fires pacific northwest