QUICK FACTS
Size: 52,130
Start Date: July 22, 2024
Location: 12 miles NE of Burns, OR
Containment: 31%.
Total Personnel: 412 personnel
Cause: Lightning/Natural
Resources Assigned: 13 hand crews, 29 engines, 7 bulldozers, 11 water tenders, 5 skidders
Community Meetings Scheduled: Tuesday, August 6 at 7 p.m., at the Harney County Chamber of Commerce in Burns
Leaders of the Alaska Incident Management Team will be in Burns for a community meeting to provide an update on the Telephone Fire, Falls Fire, and several other fires we are working to suppress in the area. The meeting will be shared on the Malheur National Forest Facebook page and the Falls and Telephone Fires Facebook page.
Priorities for Monday, August 5:
- Initial Attack (IA): The potential for new fire starts in the area remains significant, and firefighters remain vigilant and focused on IA, ready to respond to any new threats
- Northwest side of the Telephone Fire
- Northwest side of the Falls/Sand Fire
- East side of the Telephone Fire
With containment line around the majority of the east side of the fire and tie-in to Pine Creek on the northeast corner of the fire complete, crews are focusing on mop-up operations and increasing depth into the containment area. In parts of the northeast corner, as much as 50 feet of containment within the line has been attained, and crews will continue increasing depth today. A portion of the southeast part of the fire near Poujade Road north of dozer line, which had been a concern, is now looking good, with direct line complete, and great mop-up work being done by Oregon National Guard crews to secure line. Today, crews will continue securing line around unburned pockets of fuel. The southwest portion of the fire is looking good, and on the northwest side, hotshots along with aerial resources doing retardant drops have made good progress catching a slop-over from a few days ago, keeping its footprint small.
The most active part of the fire lately has been west of the 28 road, and great progress was made in this area yesterday. Dozer line was added along the 2820 road and power line off King Mountain. Today, hotshot crews will continue securing a slop-over, working from King Mountain to tie into the 600 Road in the Trout Creek area. On the northwestern side, hotshots and aerial resources continue working to minimize spread of the fire. Crews are scouting this area for opportunities to tie into road systems to go direct where available. Crews will also continue to address the slop-over across the 2820 road. In the northwest corner, hotshots and aerial resources dropping retardant have been working to minimize the spread of fire with positive results. An Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) flew last night to look for heat in the fire area, and there appeared to be none within the existing footprint.
As our crews work along the 28 Road, they are working in close partnership with the Burns Paiute Tribe. The leader of the Burns Paiute Tribe, along with Agency Administrators and Alaska Incident Management Team 1 have had numerous meetings to discuss the best strategies to reduce the impact to values that are culturally important to the Burns Paiute Tribe. Our Resource Advisors are currently hosting Tribal Cultural Resource Technicians (CRTs), escorting them to the line each day to be a part of our day-to-day operations, working with us to minimize cultural impacts in the fire areas.
Firefighters have made tremendous progress on the fire, task forces have completed structure protection measures, and evacuation levels have begun to diminish. Because of that progress, this morning the remaining Oregon State Fire Marshal (OSFM) task forces and its Green Incident Management Team will be returning to their home agencies.
Hundreds of firefighters remain on the Telephone Fire and are dedicated to continuing their great progress. Alaska Incident Management Team 1 has structural protection capabilities should fire activity increase. The OSFM Green Team and all the structural firefighters would like to thank the communities impacted by the Telephone Fire for their support and hospitality.