High winds put Oregon wildfire watchers on alert, especially for Oakridge area

The strong east winds expected to sweep Oregon on Friday and Saturday have heightened wildfire fears statewide, but in Lane County the large, active wildfire burning near Oakridge poses the most serious concern for emergency managers.

The lightning-sparked Cedar Creek Fire was burning in 31,486 acres about 15 miles west of Oakridge on Thursday and was spreading northeast of Waldo Lake. The fire is 18% contained, but has proven difficult for firefighters to manage due to steep terrain and unsafe conditions. Now attention is shifting to the fire's western perimeter in anticipation of high wind.

A Red Flag Warning for critical fire weather conditions will be in effect for western Oregon from 11 a.m. Friday to 8 p.m. Saturday.

Though wildfire risk is high across the state and in other parts of Lane County, the Cedar Creek Fire is the county's only active wildfire and a westward shift would put people around Oakridge at risk. Fire responders are preparing for action.

Chief Chad Minter with the Lane County Fire Defense Board said about 30 local firefighters dispatched to wildfires in Joseph now are on their way home in case the wind creates new fires or spreads the Cedar Creek Fire toward Oakridge.

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"You could have something in the Mohawk Valley, McKenzie Valley or South Hills of Eugene," Minter said. "Wind and powerlines — if something gets knocked down and a fire starts, it'll get bigger faster. We want to have task forces not only ready to come (to Oakridge) but to keep fires small. We're going to hit everything harder than we normally do."

The Cedar Creek Fire is being managed by federal and state teams, but Minter said the fire defense board's task forces are preparing to integrate into their response in case of westward spread. Minter said three task forces comprised of firefighters from various Lane County agencies are on standby and another two could be assembled quickly if needed.

Minter said he may not have made the decision to recall firefighters from Joseph before the 2020 Labor Day Fires, also driven by strong east winds, some of which which may have started because of downed power lines. The Holiday Farm Fire, one of those fires, went on to burn nearly 174,000 acres in the McKenzie River Valley and destroy hundreds of homes.

"After Holiday Farm, if we have winds like that and fire already on the landscape above Oakridge, we've very concerned about that, so we pulled back," he said. "We're Lane County firefighters, so our job is to take care of Lane County first."

City officials in Oakridge are busy preparing for possible fire activity as well.

“It’s been pretty crazy today, just back-to-back meetings on all these issues,” said Oakridge City Administrator James Cleavenger.

The city is less concerned about the Cedar Creek Fire at the moment, he said, and more concerned about possible new blazes resulting from the projected high winds.

“It’s really the possibility of any new fires starting because of these conditions,” he said. “If that happens — depending on where we are — we could be cut off again since there’s only one way in and out of Oakridge.”

While he hopes the fire weather misses Oakridge altogether, Cleavenger added the city is taking precautions such as making sure buses are on standby and lists of individuals who may need assistance evacuating are up to date.

“Luckily, I guess you could call it that, we’re a resilient community and we’re used to this,” he said. “We’ve been through disasters pretty much every year for the last five years or so, so people are well versed in what to prepare for.”

Cleavenger urged people not to panic and to stay vigilant for possible new smoke. He added that all burning within city limits and the national forest lands has been prohibited so any new smoke should be reported.

Below is some potentially useful information for Lane County residents preparing for the upcoming wind storm:

Set up emergency alerts

Lane County uses multiple methods to alert residents to danger, some of which require registration while others don't.

AlertSense (also called AlertMe!) allows fire, police and other emergency response agencies to issue alerts to residents in the event of severe weather, fire, flooding and the need for immediate evacuation, as well as other types of incident.

In the event of an emergency, alerts are sent the contact information residents provide, including phone, text messages and email. Emergency voice alerts sent from the county come through as phone number 541-972-3177 on caller ID.

Residents also can dial that number to hear the last message repeated.

Sign up for AlertSense at https://public.alertsense.com/SignUp/.

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Lane County also has access to a public alerting system, or reverse 9-1-1. The system delivers alerts and warnings, and provide emergency instructions to the general public by automatically calling the landline phones in an affected area.

The Emergency Alert System provides warnings of imminent danger to life and property. The EAS broadcasts over various media such as radio, television, cable television, satellite radio and satellite television during an emergency.

EAS does not currently interrupt streaming services, such as Netflix.

The county also may send Wireless Emergency Alerts to your mobile phones, which do not require residents sign up.

The Lane Regional Air Protection Agency also expects the wind to bring wildfire smoke to populated areas Friday.

In Eugene-Springfield, air quality may be unhealthy for sensitive groups, including children, people older than 65, pregnant people and those with heart or respiratory conditions. In Oakridge, air quality may be unhealthy for everyone.

Evacuations and closures

No evacuation orders have been issued for Oakridge or other populated areas of Lane County. But some camping and recreation areas near the Cedar Creek Fire are under such orders or are being closed in Lane and Deschutes counties.

A map of Cedar Creek Fire evacuation order levels can be found at https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/maps/8307.

The McFarland lakes and Elk Creek Trail areas are under a Level 3 "Go Now" evacuation order due to the Cedar Creek Fire. The East Waldo Level 3 order include the Shadow Bay Campground and the area to the southwest of Bobby Lake.

Mink Lake Basin is under a Level 2 "Be Set" evacuation order due to the Cedar Creek Fire.

Howard Buford Recreation Area at Mt. Pisgah will be closed to the public from Friday through at least Saturday, according to the county. The closure affects all park areas, including the trails, the Arboretum and the river access.

Campfires in county campgrounds, day use areas and beaches are prohibited from 8 p.m. Thursday until at least 6 p.m. Sunday. Stoves and propane fire pits that can be turned off by a valve are still allowed on blacktop or gravel surfaces.

Plan for potential electricity shut-offs

Lane County electric utilities are taking precautions ahead of the wind event.

The Eugene Water & Electric Company has put all high-risk fire zones into "protective settings" operation mode, according to spokesman Aaron Orlowski. This setting modidies high-voltage electric switches and relays to make them more sensitive to faults, such as a tree branch falling on a line, which would trigger an instantaneous power shut off.

If the power trips off, EWEB won't re-energize the line until operators are sure it's safe to do so, Orlowski said in an email. Restoring power to those lines could take longer than normal because of the extra steps involved, Orlowski said.

EWEB's high-risk zones include the McKenzie River Valley and part of South Hills in Eugene.

See map of high-risk fire zones at https://bit.ly/EWEBFireZones.

Other power companies' responses:Oregon to see extreme wildfire danger similar to 2020 Labor Day blowup

The Lane Electric Cooperative will set its equipment to "high sensitivity" Friday, according to a utility spokesperson. That setting is used in high-risk situations to ensure lines won't reenergize if something, such as a limb, makes contact.

If the power does go out it will remain out until at least after 11 p.m. Saturday when crews will begin patrolling lines and restoring power. This could result in a longer than usual outages should the power lines trip off due to the wind.

Lane Electric will continue to update its outage page as new information comes in.

Cedar Creek Fire reaches 31,000 acres

The greatest concern centers on the largest wildfire in western Oregon, the Cedar Creek Fire, which grew to 31,486 acres by Thursday morning. The fire remains about 12 to 13 miles from the town of Oakridge.

Normally, Oregon wildfires don’t travel anywhere close to that far even on active fire days. But during the Labor Day 2020 blowup, the Lionshead Fire traveled almost 15 to 17 miles from Mount Jefferson to Detroit.

However, Bud Sexton, the information officer on the Cedar Creek Fire, said that while they do expect the fire to move west — and new closures have been put in place to the west — the topography doesn't favor an extremely rapid spread to the west.

In other words, unlike Labor Day fires that were pushed down major river canyons, there is no obvious canyon for the Cedar Creek Fire to run down once it gets hit by the east winds, he said.

"The east wind doesn't line up with a lot of the drainages where the fire is — they're mostly north to south. So in this case the wind and terrain don't align for a huge push, which is a good thing.

"It's still going to make a push, the question is just how far."

The team working the fire said crews and resources would be “strategically placed around the fire overnight," a Thursday morning report said.

"Crews and equipment are prepared for initial attack on any new starts or spot fires and will relay current conditions throughout the evening," it said.

Alaska Team 1 is joining the crew to manage the eastern zone of the Cedar Creek Fire and multiple teams managing a large fire allows on-the-ground resources to be supported closer to their firefighting activities.

Fire crews on the Rum Creek Fire, outside Grants Pass, are also preparing for the event, but the fire is somewhat less of a concern at 44% containment.

“Personnel on the Rum Creek Fire will be monitoring the weather and fire closely, ready to take action if the fire attempts to escape the containment lines,” the crews said in a Thursday morning report.

Oregon's historic east winds

Oregon has had problems with east winds for decades, well before the 2020 Labor Day fires.

A 1957 study by the U.S. Forest Service described how east winds fueled the Tillamook Burn of 1933 and the Bandon Fire of 1936, which killed 11 people and burned the coastal town in what remains the deadliest fire event in Oregon history.

More recently, east winds fueled the original run of the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia Gorge and a major run of the 2003 B&B Complex — both in September.

“There is a close relation between occurrences of severe easterly winds and large forest fires in northwest Oregon and southwest Washington,” study author Owen P. Cramer wrote. “With the east winds comes the dreaded combination of low humidity and high wind that in the past has whipped small fires into conflagrations.”

Eric Wise, fire meteorologist for the Northwest Coordination Center, said, “The reason east winds are so problematic is they’re dry to begin with, and as they come up and over the mountains, they dry out and warm up even more before speeding up down the mountains.

"So in addition to the wind hitting the fire, it’s also drying out the environment and making it prime for ignition at the same time. It gives any fire it hits a boost that can spread them beyond containment lines.”

Photojournalist Ben Lonergan contributed to this report.

Contact reporter Adam Duvernay at aduvernay@registerguard.com. Follow on Twitter @DuvernayOR.

Zach Urness can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: High winds put wildfire watchers on alert, especially in Oakridge area