Help is arriving to fight the Golden Fire burning near the Klamath County community of Bonanza, OR. The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) Incident Management Team 2 and the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s (OSFM) Blue Incident Management Team arrived at the Golden Fire Sunday, July 23. Both teams entered into unified command of the fire at 6:00 p.m. The two teams will be working cohesively to manage fire.
The Golden Fire was initially reported around 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 22, and is now estimated to be approximately 2,500 acres with no containment. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek declared a conflagration Saturday evening, allowing the OSFM to mobilize more resources from the Oregon fire service. The initial response included mutual aid task forces from Lake and Klamath Counties as well as OSFM immediate response task forces from Central Oregon and the Rogue Valley. The OSFM mobilized additional task forces from Clatsop, Douglas, Lane, Polk, Marion, and Yamhill counties.
The weather forecast called for high temperatures and low humidities to continue, which creates challenges for controlling the fire. Additional equipment and firefighters have been ordered and will continue to arrive over the coming days. The public is asked to avoid the are due to safety concerns and an increase in fire traffic.
The following evacuations remain in place:
- Level 3 (GO NOW} East of Highway 140E, south of Polar Bear Lane, and north of Keno Springs Road.
- Level 3 (GO NOW} East of Bly Mountain Cutoff Road and north of Keno Springs Road.
The American Red Cross and Klamath County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) have established an evacuation shelter at Bonanza School, 31601 Mission Street, Bonanza, OR 97623. For the latest evacuation information, call the Klamath County hotline (541) 205-9730. To sign up for Klamath County alerts, visit alerts.klamathcounty.org.
A Facebook page has been set up to share fire information: Golden Fire Facebook Page