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FIRE NEWS--Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center
For Immediate Release: July 31, 2014 7 p.m.
Thursday, July 31 fire evening update
PRINEVILLE, Ore.—The largest fire in Central Oregon, the Sniption fire, grew to 25,000
acres today.
The Sniption fire is a wind-driven grass fire
that originated about 9 miles west of Condon on Tuesday on private property.
The fire has since spread south and west onto both private and BLM lands,
moving into Thirtymile Canyon and Sniption Canyon.
Crews spent the day fighting the fire with
helicopters and air tankers, and multiple engines, keeping the fire west of
Highway 19, which connects Condon to Fossil.
Crews conducted burnout operations late into
the night yesterday and protected a farm house and other structures from the
fire.
A Type 2 Incident Management Team will take
command of the fire, using Condon High School as a base camp.
Future updates on the Sniption fire will be
available online at: http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4026/
The dispatch center fielded 18 new smoke reports
by 7 p.m. today, most of them south and west of Bend on the Deschutes National
Forest.
Last night’s thunderstorms brought significant
lightning activity to the east slopes of the Cascades, with scattered lightning
across Jefferson and Crook counties.
At the time of this report, thunderstorms have
begun moving northeast across Highway 20 southeast of Bend into Prineville
BLM-administered lands and the Maury Mountains.
Lightning activity is expected to continue
later into the evening with more strikes anticipated.
In the Cascades today, crews responded to
multiple small and single-tree fires. Smoke jumpers responded to a half-acre
fire on the southwest slopes of Mt. Bachelor and had contained it by early
evening.
A 20-acre fire about 4 miles northeast of
Crane Prairie Reservoir was 50 percent lined with bulldozers by early evening.
Firefighters halted fire spread on that incident yesterday with fire retardant.
Yesterday, helicopters used Crane Prairie
Reservoir for bucket drops to fight multiple small fires near the reservoir.
Two new fires were reported in the Ochoco
Mountains today. One of them, near Horse Heaven Creek west of Forest Road 4230,
was 0.75 acres. Crews suppressed the fire with water drops from a helicopter.
Another fire, on Bear Mountain, was contained at less than 0.1 acre.
Two fires southwest of Dayville continued to
put up smoke but saw little growth. One fire is reported at 13 acres and
another at 40 acres. Crews fought the fires with water drops from a helicopter
due to the steep, inaccessible terrain.
Three fires east of Dayville are being managed
by the Oregon Department of Forestry as the Haystack Complex. Information on those
fires can be found online at: http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4020/
The National Weather
Service in Pendleton has issued a Red Flag Warning for thunderstorms producing
abundant lightning. The warning will be in effect through 11 p.m. Saturday,
August 2.
Storms that develop
are expected to bring with them at least the potential for some rain, with
precipitation ranging from a few hundredths of an inch to around a quarter of
an inch.
