PORTLAND, Oregon — Authorities say wildfires in Oregon have burned more acres of land this year than ever before, with the region’s peak fire season yet to arrive in mid-August.
There are flames raging more than 1.4 million acres, or nearly 2,200 square miles (5,700 square kilometers), said Carol Connolly, a spokeswoman for the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. That’s the most since reliable records began in 1992, she said, and surpasses the previous record set in 2020, when deadly fires tore through the state.
Connolly said 71 large fires have burned the vast majority of Oregon’s land this year. Large fires are defined as those that burn more than 100 acres of timber or more than 300 acres of grass or brush.
Thirty-two homes across the state have been lost to the fires, she said, 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 459 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) but was at least 95% contained as of Friday, authorities said. At one point, it was the largest fire in the country.
Park fire in California has now become the largest fire in the US, burning more than 650 square miles (1,709 square kilometers) and destroying more than 600 structures. A local man was arrested after authorities alleged he started the fire by pushing a burning car into a ravine in a state park outside the Sacramento Valley city of Chico.
The fires in Oregon have burned largely rural and mountainous areas and prompted evacuation notices across the state. On Friday, a fire near the Portland suburb of Oregon City prompted authorities to close a section of a highway and issue Level 3 “go now” evacuation orders along a portion of the route.
The most destructive fires recorded in Oregon in recent memory occurred in 2020. The fires that burned over Labor Day weekend that year were among the worst natural disasters in the state’s history, killing nine people, burning more than 1,000 square miles (4,856 square kilometers) and destroying thousands of homes and other buildings.