Oregon fire danger to mellow Saturday evening, air quality improves Sunday night

The period of extreme fire danger will remain in place across western Oregon through Saturday morning but will slowly begin to improve this afternoon as the east winds die down, a meteorologist said.

“The winds are already starting to moderate a bit,” National Weather Service meteorologist Shawn Weagle said.

The heavy smoke and poor air quality is likely to stick around through the weekend, before getting pushed out of the area around Sunday night and especially Monday, he added.

Gradually, the east winds will be replaced by winds coming in from the west — and the Pacific Ocean — that are cooler and damper, which will help with the fire dangers that’s led to wildfires exploding, new fires igniting and smoke in the valley.

But it’s still going to take some time for that air to reach the Willamette Valley and especially the Cascade Range where the 51,000-acre Cedar Creek Fire is burning.

While the winds will slowly die out through Saturday afternoon, it will take time for the humidity to climb back up. Western Oregon remains extremely dry, with humidity levels in the teens and even single digits, which is very dry.

“It does take time for that marine air to reach especially the Cascades, so up there, we’re probably looking into Sunday before things start to get back to normal,” Weagle said.

The good news is that by Monday, temperatures should cool and humidity should rise, improving the fire danger dramatically.

“Monday we really cool off toward normal and we could even see some coastal drizzle or scattered showers,” he said. “But unfortunately, we’re probably not going to see much or enough rain to have a big impact on the Cedar Creek Fire.”

While fire danger should improve and the air should clear, the fire will probably stay on the landscape until heavy rains of autumn finally arrive — and that’s not in the forecast just yet.

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. To support his work, subscribe to the Statesman Journal. Urness is the author of “Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon” and “Hiking Southern Oregon.” He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or 503-399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon fire danger to mellow, air quality improves by Sunday night