The Oregon State Fire Marshal is sending its Blue Incident Management Team and four task forces to the Falls Fire burning 20 miles northeast of Riley in Harney County.
Hot, dry, and windy conditions caused the fire to grow rapidly on Saturday, pushing it to 55,000 acres with zero percent containment.
“Within the last week, we mobilized three incident management teams to fires across Oregon. This highlights the substantial fire danger we are seeing,” Oregon State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple said. “With dry lightning expected to hit east of the Cascades on Sunday, I can’t stress enough the importance of taking action to prevent sparking another wildfire.”
The Emergency Conflagration Act was invoked by Oregon Governor Tina Kotek Sunday morning which allows the OSFM to mobilize resources.
The Grant and Harney County sheriffs’ offices have evacuation orders in place. A map of Harney County evacuations can be found here. Grant County evacuations can be found here.
A Red Flag Warning remains in effect for Sunday with temperatures in the mid-90s and very low relative humidity. Afternoon thunderstorms are predicted for the area that may produce gusty outflow winds reaching 20-25 mph. Little to no precipitation is expected from these isolated thunderstorms.
For fire information, please follow the Falls Fire Facebook Page or the Falls Fire InciWeb page.
