PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Wildfires in Oregon have burned more acres this year than any other year since reliable records began, officials said, even as the region’s fire season, which is set to peak in mid-August, continues.
The fires have burned more than 1.4 million acres, or nearly 2,200 square miles (5,700 square kilometers), said Carol Connolly, spokeswoman for the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. That’s the largest number since reliable records began in 1992 and surpasses the previous record set in 2020, when deadly fires ravaged the state.
Connolly said that so far this year, 71 large fires have burned most of Oregon’s land area. Large fires are defined as those that have burned more than 100 acres of forest or more than 300 acres of grass or brush.
Thirty-two homes were destroyed by the fires in the state, she said, adding that the flames were fueled by high temperatures, dry conditions and low humidity.
The largest fire in Oregon is the Durkee Fire in eastern Oregon. It has burned more than 1,200 square kilometers, but was at least 95 percent under control as of Friday, according to authorities. At one point it was the largest fire in the country.
The California Park Fire has now become the largest fire in the United States, burning more than 650 square miles (1,709 square kilometers) and destroying over 600 buildings. A local man was arrested after authorities say he started the fire by pushing a burning car into a ravine in a wilderness park outside the Sacramento Valley city of Chico.
The fires in Oregon have mostly left rural and mountainous areas in ruins and triggered evacuation orders across the state. On Friday, a fire near the Portland suburb of Oregon City prompted authorities to close part of a state highway and issue Level 3 “immediate leave” evacuation orders along part of the route.
Oregon’s most devastating fires on record occurred in 2020. The Labor Day weekend fires that year were among the worst natural disasters in the state’s history, leaving nine people dead, burning more than 1,900 square miles (4,856 square kilometers) and destroying thousands of homes and other structures.
