BAKER COUNTY, Ore. — On Saturday, wildfires continued to burn across the United State, with the majority concentrated in Oregon, and the largest still the Durkee Fire.
Officials say it’s near 290,000 acres in size, with a perimeter of 169 miles. However, crews have made progress, and by Sunday it was 50% contained.
At the northwest corner of the megafires footprint, local landowners and ranchers are still dealing with the worst of it. Fire officials say this area remains a concern due to heavy winds and drier conditions at high elevation and a shift to a timber fuel type, as compared to the Durkee Fire’s predominant fuels to date: grass, shrubs and juniper.
“I can only it sum up as a huge devastation,” said Ty Sharp, the ranch manager for Three Valleys Ranch. “It really is. We lost lots of grazing land. We can’t put cows on for probably two or three years. Millions of feet in timber, and many, many miles of fence, which is all expensive to rebuild and it takes time to grow back.”
His ranch, nestled in the mountains, is made up of tens of thousands of acres and about 1,000 cattle.
“We were actually looking at adding more cattle, but now, we have to pull back,” he said.
Sharp and his team have equipment to battle the flames, but it can only do so much.
“It’s been a lot of locals trying to fight it,” he explained, “and again, it’s jumping our dozer lines and our little pumper trucks. They’re like squirt guns.”
On day 10 of the megafire, nearly 600 firefighters were working on suppression, confident they’ll soon contain the fire along Interstate 84.
Locals told KGW they’re grateful for these resources, but they’ll also continue keeping an eye out for their land and for their neighbors.
“They dropped everything and came to help,” Sharp said, “Hopefully, I can return the favor sometime, maybe at a different way. No more fires.”
Oregon has reached a total of 1,017,474 acres burned, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. This year, 2024, is rapidly catching up to, and in some cases, surpassing much of the year-by-year average of wildfires and acres burned.