Oregon Hikers

Wildfire seems more and more a prominent but unpredictable element of backpack trip planning.

The Flagstaff, AZ office of the National Weather Service has issued a wildfire forecast for 2021, available here:

https://www.weather.gov/media/fgz/March21Fire.pdf.

While centric to AZ and NM much of the information and maps are national and cover our area.

"Hit 'em hard and keep 'em small."

Burnside

wow!

Is this a thing now? Every year we have a significant fire season?

Hopefully this year won't be so bad

I think in the PNW the biggest factor is thunderstorms. Because we get almost no summer rain, it will always be dry by late summer. Even if we have a wet spring, it will completely dry out, though it means we probably won't get an early start. While some fires get started by campfires or machinery sparks, I think t-storms are still the biggest factor, and some years we have almost none of them, and so can still have a mild fire year no matter how dry it is.

And there can always be freaky factors like last September's windstorm, but that's not predictable at all.

The Southwest gets a summer monsoon most years, to I think their fire season is early.

Here's an assessment of wildland fire potential thru July issued today, 1 April, by the National Interagency Fire Center.

https://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov ... utlook.pdf

This report has separate sections for different regions of the country--Western portions of Washington and Oregon have deeper than normal snowpack so are likely to have milder fire seasons. Southern California and the desert South West are gripped by drought and are predicted to have more severe fire seasons. Other areas are mixed with higher elevation areas benefitting from deeper snowfall but lower areas drier than normal.

I hope to visit NW Wyoming in August, but maybe I should plan a back up for the Washington Cascades or Olympics??

Burnside

March-May 2021 was unusually dry here in Oregon. Snow packs and stream flows are below normal. Accordingly, wildland managers are expecting a worse than average fire season.

The Joseph Canyon fire in Wallowa County, which has grown to 7,600 acres, is, perhaps, a harbinger of fires to come.

https://gacc.nifc.gov/nwcc/content/prod ... asonal.pdf

Fire Activity Dashboard. https://nifc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashb ... 1648131407

Take care and maybe trip early.

Burnside

Locally we have been sooooo lucky with air quality this year! Fire-wise things seemed to be calming down until this afternoon which brought a wind shift to most fires on the west coast. Click for larger view. The date stamp is "zulu" time (GMT).

Fingers crossed!

There are billions of dollars in the senate-passed infrastructure bill for fire treatment/prevention efforts. We could probably dump four times as much into proactive efforts to reduce the risks of mega fires (thinning, prescribed burning, habitat restoration, community protection, etc), and still have a ways to go. But at least it's the right direction.