PORTLAND, Ore. — Evacuation orders were lifted near Lyons, Oregon, after flames jumped the Santiam River Tuesday night.
The Santiam Park Fire torched 189 acres and as of Wednesday evening, fire officials said it was 80 percent contained. Conditions were better for fighting the fire Wednesday.
In Clackamas County, several brush fires started Monday and Tuesday fueled by strong winds and dry brush.
We wanted to know: is this early for fires in our region of the state?
An expert at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center (NWCC) says it is early for fires. However, it’s not necessarily unprecedented.
The dry, warm and windy weather we're having means increased fire danger west of the Cascades.
“It only takes a few days of warm, dry weather such as we've been having after a dry spell to start pushing our fire danger indices up,” said NWCC fire weather program manager John Saltenberger.
He told KGW he was surprised to hear about an active wildfire right now, since there was no lightning involved.
"That's a result of very strong dry eastern winds that have been pushing across the cascade mountain range and through the Columbia Gorge,” Saltenberger said.
While it is early for fires, it's too soon to say for sure whether we'll have an early fire season. Saltenberger says we can't necessarily extrapolate what this year’s fire season will look like based on what we see in March.
Also worth noting: we can't try to associate how much rain and snow we got in the winter to the upcoming fire season.
“You really can't judge what the following fire season is going to be like,” Saltenberger added.
But he tells KGW long-range forecasters predict the Pacific Northwest will have another warm and dry spring and summer, meaning the potential for an active, busy fire season.
"The discussion I sat in on Tuesday indicated that from here forward into fire season and beyond, long range forecasters from the climate prediction center in Washington, D.C. are calling for the West Coast, in particular the Pacific Northwest, to undergo another warm and dry spring and summer in 2019.
“Based upon just repetition from what I've seen for the last few years I can't help but imagine that it means we're headed in toward another busy fire season for the geographic area," Saltenberger added.
The majority of wildfires are human-caused but some are started by lightning.
Saltenberger says lightning starts in combination with hot and dry conditions would mean a bad fire year.
“When it gets hot and dry, as it looks like it's prime to do during the 2019 fire season, if we get lightning at the right place at the right time, that's really going to make or break fire season for us,” Saltenberger said.
If this dry trend continues, it’s possible this fire season will start earlier, he said. But, we must get through April and May before getting into true fire season in June. There could be a lot of precipitation, which would set things back.