More than 60 fires burning across Oregon and Washington

Powerful winds and hundreds of lightning strikes from thunderstorms rattled eastern Oregon and Idaho Wednesday afternoon, cutting power and stoking fires, including one in Oregon that is already the largest active blaze in the nation.

More than 60 significant fires are burning in Oregon and Washington alone, and Oregon has been plagued with hundreds of lightning strikes from thunderstorms in recent days that have started new blazes in bone-dry vegetation.

The Durkee Fire, burning near the Oregon-Idaho border about 130 miles west of Boise, caused the closure of a stretch of Interstate 84 again Wednesday. The blaze crossed the interstate near the town of Huntington and merged with the Cow Valley Fire, another large blaze that had been burning nearby, Gov. Tina Kotek said.

“The wildfires in Eastern Oregon have scaled up quickly,” Kotek said in a news release Wednesday evening, calling it a dynamic situation. “We are facing strong erratic winds over the region that could impact all fires. Rain is not getting through. Some communities do not have power.”

She said she had deployed the National Guard to the region.

The 420-square-mile blaze prompted the evacuation of Huntington on Sunday, and on Wednesday city officials posted on Facebook that people remaining in town, especially those with “major health issues,” needed to leave their homes because of wildfire smoke and the lack of power. 

The National Weather Service in Boise said the storms were capable of producing wind gusts up to 70 mph with blowing dust reducing visibility. 

Wind, lightning and heavy rain fell that could cause flash flooding and debris flows in recently burned areas, authorities said. Flash flood warnings were issued for Huntington and in a nearby burn scar area.

The Oregon State Fire Marshal’s office also mobilized nearly 500 firefighters to help protect communities that could be threatened by wildfires on Wednesday.

The major electricity utility in the region, Idaho Power, warned customers to prepare for possible outages, and by late Wednesday afternoon, nearly 7,000 customers were without electricity. The utility also cut power to customers in the Boise foothills and other nearby areas, citing extreme weather and wildfire risk.




(Photo: Oregon Department of Transportation via AP)