U.S. fire officials welcome rain, fear the wind

PORTLAND, Oregon — Northwest fire officials told U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that incoming cooler weather could help calm the massive blazes that threaten thousands of homes, but wind storms may cause extreme fire behaviour in the interim.

Vilsack, in Portland Friday for a wildfire briefing, said about 14,000 homes in Oregon and Washington are at risk and the U.S. Forest Service is spending $10 million US a day for fire suppression in the region.

As the warm weather is being replaced this week by cooler conditions from the Pacific Ocean, the cold front could bring rain to western Oregon this weekend, but the transition to the cold front will also bring strong winds across eastern Washington and northeastern Oregon.

Any break in the weather would be welcomed by weary fire crews.

This year to date, a total of 3,382 fires have burned in Oregon and Washington — with 93 of those categorized as large fires, officials told Vilsack at the briefing. Currently, more than 10,900 firefighters in the region are battling 11 large blazes.

Vilsack said that more and more federal resources are being used to fight Western wildfires.

In 1995, he said, 16 per cent of the Forest Service’s budget went toward fire suppression. Today, 52 per cent of the agency’s budget is spent on fighting fires. In the next decade, if the trend continues, the agency estimates nearly 70 per cent of its budget will go toward wildfire costs.

“No one wants our Forest Service to become one large fire department,” Vilsack said.

That money isn’t spent on forest thinning and other fire prevention projects. Agencies such as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service have to borrow funds to pay for such projects.