Forest fires burning in Oregon.

We have a forest fire less then 20 miles away; the sky is orange. The fire is about 10 miles east of Springfield. I'm praying for rain.

Holiday Farm Fire east of Springfield burns area nearly 4 times the size of Eugene

The smoke is so bad; viability is down to about 1/4 mile.
All flights from the Eugene airport are canceled.

The National Guard is sending in 300 fire suppression trained troops to help out.
Some good news at least.

Here is a video of a guy up by Molalla Oregon; that had a fire come 100ft from his house. It was the difference of one side of a driveway all burned out; and the other side OK. You never know where the fire is going to go.


This is how smoky it's been today here.

Danthemailman said:

How did these fires get started in the first place?

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Most by lightening.

When it's close to a hundred degrees and the humidity is down to 19%; it doesn't take much to start a fire.

Sparks from trains going by have started some.

Dave G. said:

20 miles is getting close. Portland seem to have some rain in the forecast for Mon-Tues, don't know how that pans out for you there.

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We are forecast for a possibility of rain. We can hope.

Andrewn said:

Are the fires close to Hillsboro?

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There are some up by Portland.

The fire is got a little bigger; they have 500+ fire fighters on the ground now; but the perimeter of the fire is about 100 miles thru some of the hardest to walk on terrain imaginable.

Straight up and down thick timbered mountains. Some places they just have to let the fire have it's way; as there is no way of getting men or heavy equipment into that area.

Looks like we may get some rain in the next few days; so that would be good.

Here is a map of the fire. You can see how big it is; it's bigger then Eugene & Springfield combined:

People seem to have a need to find out how the fires started; and think that most are caused by arson; which is just the opposite of the truth.

The vast majority of the fires are caused by lightening.

The scientist said there were over 14,000 lightening strikes in the last storm that past thru the west coast; and a good percentage of those caused fires; altho most were put out very soon after the strike; when the fire was small.

And there are many other reasons for fire to start. One of the bigger ones in Oregon was started by a person pounding a metal spike into the ground and the sparks given off by the hammer set some local dry grass on fire.

So it's not always some bad person causing them.