#ORwildfire

(Runtime 4:33)Exhaustion and frustration: Ranchers in southeast Oregon are battling wildfire. Like many more rural landowners across the West, they’re…

There’s a red flag warning and heat advisories in place throughout several areas of the Northwest, along with several growing wildfires. The situation,…

In the decades since government restrictions reduced logging on federal lands, the timber industry has promoted the idea that private lands are less prone to wildfires, saying that forests thick with trees fuel bigger, more destructive blazes. But an analysis by OPB and ProPublica shows last month’s fires burned as intensely on private forests with large-scale logging operations as they did, on average, on federal lands that cut fewer trees.

Close communication with the Forest Service helped save one Mount Hood ski resort on Labor Day, when fire danger was critical and fires sparked and grew fast all round the Northwest. Employees at Mount Hood Meadows saw a social media post of a plume of smoke.

Nearly 300,000 acres in Washington burned in just one day over Labor Day weekend. That is almost unfathomable. But it happened. Why? What were the conditions that made for that explosive situation?

One hundred large fires are burning in 12 states across the West — but just five of them have been contained, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

With at least two dozen Oregon dairies threatened by raging wildfires, farmers are grappling with the delicate task of moving them to safer ground — or staying put.

Widespread wildfires across the Northwest are causing owners to evacuate more than 2,000 pets and livestock into fairgrounds, friends’ properties and even across state lines.

A dry cold front is expected to push into central and eastern Washington this weekend, bringing with it lots of wind from the north. That could fan the flames of fires, especially new starts that are just taking off. Winds could reach 15 to 25 miles per hour, with gusts around 40 miles per hour.

Over the past week, thousands of lightning strikes have sparked more than a dozen large wildfires in Oregon. For example, five fires are burning around the Warm Springs Reservation.