Central Oregon EVENING Fire Update, 7/9, 6:20pm

Central Oregon EVENING Fire Update

PRINEVILLE, Ore. – Thunder clouds dominated the skies across Central Oregon this afternoon, blanketing the landscape with localized rain and approximately 150 lightning strikes. Four fires were ignited as a result of the strikes and all were held to under ¼ acre. The largest fire of the afternoon was north of Tumalo Reservoir and was held to 0.55 acres by crews. This fire is under investigation.

All evacuations and closures for The Ten Mile Canyon Fire (Incident #368) near the junction of Highway 97 and 197 have been lifted this evening. The fire has grown to 6,707 acres and is 25% contained. Nearly 100 firefighters are assigned to the incident and have been working to prevent the fire from jumping the Deschutes River to the west. A VLAT (Very Large Air Tanker) has been dropping retardant on the western flank and firefighters have been performing small burnout operations to prevent further spread. The fire, reported yesterday afternoon, has been determined to be human caused and is still under investigation.

The Corner Creek Fire remained at 28,766 acres and is 50% contained as of 9:00 a.m. this morning.  Wet and cooler weather allowed crews to continue strengthening the fire lines along the perimeter, but work was cut short on portions of the fire line due to lightning in the area yesterday afternoon.  Thunderstorms yesterday dropped rain from less than 0.10 inch to 0.25 inch across the fire.  The Corner Creek Fire stayed within established containment lines.  Continued helicopter water drops successfully checked the spread of the fire along unlined fire edge.

As a reminder, several closures are still in place for the Corner Creek Fire including an Ochoco National Forest area closure and the South Fork Road/Co. Rd. 42 which is closed to the general public from near Dayville to south of the US Forest Service 58 Road junction due to fire activity. To read the entire closure order and view a map of the area closure, please visit the Ochoco National Forest website at http://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/ochoco/alerts-notices 

Information about the Sugarloaf and Corner Creek Fires, managed by the Oregon Interagency Incident Management Team 2 of Forestry Team 2, can be found athttp://inciweb.nwcg.gov/

All of Central Oregon is under a Red Flag Warning for abundant lightning and gusty winds through 9:00 p.m. this evening.

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