Dozens missing as firefighters battle Oregon fires

500,000 told to leave or prepare to do so

SALEM, Ore. – Hundreds of firefighters battled two large wildfires Friday that threatened to merge near the most populated part of Oregon, including the suburbs of Portland, and the governor said dozens of people are missing in other parts of the state.

The state’s emergency management director, Andrew Phelps, said officials are “preparing for a mass fatality event” and that thousands of structures have been destroyed.

Gov. Kate Brown said more than 40,000 Oregonians have been evacuated and about 500,000 are in different levels of evacuation zones, either having been told to leave or to prepare to do so. She was dialing back on a statement issued late Thursday by the state Office of Emergency Management that said a half-million people had been ordered to evacuate statewide.

Dozens of people are missing in Jackson County in the south and Marion County, where a fire continues to burn east of Salem, Brown said at a news conference Friday.

The Oregon Convention Center in Portland was among the buildings being transformed into shelters for evacuees.

Portland, shrouded in smoke from the fires, on Friday had the worst air quality of the world’s major cities, according to IQAir.

A change in the weather, with winds dropping and shifting direction and humidity rising, greatly helped firefighters struggling to prevent two fires from advancing farther west into more-populated areas.

“The wind laid down quite a bit for us yesterday. There also wasn’t that strong eastern wind that was pushing the fire more to the west,” said Stefan Myers of the state’s fire information team.

Winds coming from the Pacific Ocean also neutralized the fires’ advance and even pushed them back, Myers said.

Almost 500 personnel were working on the fires, which were just a few miles apart, with rugged terrain between them that limits boots-on-the-ground efforts to keep them apart, Myers said. If they merge, they could generate such heat that it could cause embers to fly thousands of feet into the air, potentially igniting other areas, Myers said.

Oregon officials haven’t released an exact death count for the wildfires, but at least four fatalities have been reported in the state. One person was killed in wildfires in Washington.

Oregon’s congressional delegation announced Friday that the White House has approved the state’s request for an emergency declaration.

JOHN LOCHER/AP Desiree Pierce cries as she visits her fire-destroyed home Friday in Talent, Ore. “I just needed to see it, to get some closure,” she said.