Active Weather
No severe thunderstorm risk area and no excessive rainfall risk area are drawn over Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, or Washington today. The weather story in this region is not what is falling but what is not.
Warm, dry conditions continue across the interior of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, which is the pattern sustaining the active fires. Reporting from the Little Giant incident notes a thunderstorm was forecast for late Tuesday evening with additional showers expected through the week.
Storms in dry fire country are a mixed development rather than a straightforward improvement. Rain helps. Lightning starts new fires, and gusty outflow wind ahead of a storm can push an existing fire in a direction crews were not working. Households near an active incident should treat a forecast thunderstorm as a reason to check their evacuation level rather than to relax about it.
Infrastructure
The National Interagency Fire Center's September 1 situation report puts the national preparedness level at 5, the highest of five steps, with 163 large incidents nationally across nearly 3.93 million acres. Nationally, 52,466 fires have burned 8,262,025 acres so far this year, which is 126 percent of the ten year average for fire count and 164 percent for acreage.
The Northwest geographic area carries 24 uncontained large fires, the most of any area in the country.
The Little Giant fire in Washington is the largest single incident in the state, at 170,784 acres and 49 percent containment, burning in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and almost entirely within Chelan County. Reporting from September 1 notes that crews have secured hotspots east of Devil's Backbone Ridge, that the Chelan County Sheriff's Office has reduced evacuation levels across all affected areas, and that further reductions are anticipated as containment improves.
Other major incidents in the area, from the September 1 situation report: the Big Grass fire in Oregon at 578,637 acres and 94 percent containment; the Rowe Creek Complex in Oregon at 373,927 acres and 96 percent containment with 33 structures lost; the Hagen fire in Oregon at 61,125 acres and 50 percent containment; and the McCully fire in Oregon at 11,231 acres and 4 percent containment with residences threatened and evacuations in place.
The McCully fire is the one to watch on those numbers. Four percent containment means the perimeter is effectively open and the fire's direction is being set by wind and terrain.
Your evacuation level, not the acreage, is what governs your day if you live near an incident. County sheriff's offices set and change those levels, and county emergency notification signup is the fastest useful thing a household can do today.
Public Health
Air quality advisories are in effect across several central Oregon counties. Oregon's smoke information service listed advisories for Crook, Deschutes, Jefferson, eastern Marion, and southern Wasco counties expected to run through Wednesday afternoon, with Deschutes County moving to an intermittent smoke advisory as of Tuesday evening. Intermittent smoke is also anticipated in Baker, eastern Clackamas, and Wheeler counties through the same period.
Washington has had air quality alerts posted as of September 1. Statewide wildfire acreage in Washington reportedly doubled to roughly 851,000 acres in late August, and smoke has followed that activity.
Smoke is uneven at small distances. A valley can sit in it while a ridge two miles away is clear, which is why a regional forecast is less useful than a local reading. The AirNow Fire and Smoke Map reports conditions at monitors near you.
When the local reading is elevated, the standard household response is to keep windows and doors closed, run air conditioning on recirculate rather than drawing outside air, and limit time and exertion outdoors. This matters most for older adults, young children, pregnant people, and anyone with asthma, another lung condition, or heart disease. Your state or county health department is the authority on guidance for your area.
Watch Item
Fire season in the Northwest typically ends with a sustained pattern change rather than a single rain event. The showers forecast through this week may improve conditions locally without ending anything, and containment figures can move backward on a windy afternoon.
The two numbers that summarize this season nationally are worth carrying: 126 percent of the ten year average for fire count, 164 percent for acreage. A season running well above average on acreage means fuels are dry, crews are stretched thin across competing incidents, and response to a new start may be slower than it would be in an ordinary year. That is the practical reason a household in fire country prepares to leave on its own timing rather than relying on the system to be at full strength.
The seasonal turn is coming. Atmospheric river season begins on the coast in roughly October and November, and it brings the opposite problem: too much water rather than too little. Households west of the Cascades that have been focused on smoke all summer will be thinking about flooding and landslides within two months.
Alaska sits outside today's fire picture entirely and its own fire season is winding down with the calendar.
Explore Today
Evacuation levels, defensible space, and what a household near an active incident does today.
A working list for households in fire country, built to be used rather than read.
Keeping indoor air clean during a smoke event, and what makes a home hold up when the outside air will not.