Crews making progress on largest wildfire
BLY, Ore. — The nation’s largest wildfire raged through southern Oregon on Friday, but crews were scaling back some night operations as hard work and weaker winds helped reduce the spread of flames even as wildfires continued to threaten homes in neighboring California.
The Bootleg Fire, which has destroyed an area half the size of Rhode Island, was 40% surrounded after burning some 70 homes, mainly cabins, fire officials said.
At least 2,000 homes were ordered evacuated at some point during the fire and an additional 5,000 were threatened.
The upper eastern edge of the blaze continued to move toward Summer Lake, jumping fire lines on Thursday and prompting an evacuation order for some portions of Lake County to be raised to “Go Now!” fire officials said.
Winds up to 10 mph could drive the flames through timber but not at the pace seen last week, when the winddriven blaze grew exponentially, fire information officer Angela Goldman said.
The fire, which was sparked by lightning, had been expanding by up to 4 miles a day, pushed by strong winds and critically dry weather.
There was good news on the lower portion of the 625squaremile blaze. Crews had locked in containment lines and on the lower southeastern side, crews were able to gain a substantial foothold, allowing them to cut back to nighttime patrols from what had been a “24/7 runandgun” fight, fire information officer Sarah Gracey said.
“For us, that’s a pretty big step,” she said. “It’s not that easy to work in a pitchblack forest in the middle of the night.”
In California, the Tamarack Fire south of Lake Tahoe had burned more than 91 square miles of timber and headhigh chaparral in national forest land.
The fire, sparked by lightning July 4 in Alpine County, has destroyed at least 10 buildings and forced the evacuation of more than 2,400 homes. That includes about 1,300 that were ordered evacuated for the first time Thursday when blowing embers ignited a new spot fire that jumped U.S. Highway 395 north of Topaz Lake on the CaliforniaNevada line.
More than 1,300 firefighters were battling the overall fire, and more resources were on their way.
Crews also continue to provide structure protection farther west near Markleeville, Woodfords and Crystal Springs south of California Highway 88, but the worst danger has passed there, fire officials said.