The 2021 Oregon wildfire season began in May 2021.
More than 1,000 fires had burned at least across the state as of July 21, 2021.
As of August 1, it was expected that the fires might not be contained for months.
The wildfire season in Oregon experienced an early start due to an abnormally dry spring coupled with low snowpack levels amid an
ongoing drought.
The 2021 season has been outpacing the destructive
previous season, with nearly 10 times as many acres have burned as of July 20 compared to the previous year through that date, according to the
NIFC's Northwest Coordination Center.
Background
Oregon has been experiencing increasingly large fire seasons over the last few decades, with the preceding
2020 wildfire season being one of the most destructive in the state's history.
As with much of the rest of the
Western United States
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...
, fire officials were predicting another above-average season in 2021 due to expected low precipitation and high temperatures.
The state's declaration of the start of wildfire season in mid-May marked the earliest start to a fire season in the state in over 40 years.
In preparation for the wildfire season, forest officials performed
prescribed burns and state lawmakers worked on wildfire-mitigation legislation designed to create wildfire risk maps, update building codes, and create new rules related to defensible space around homes in the
wildland–urban interface
The wildland–urban interface (WUI) is a zone of transition between wilderness (unoccupied land) and land developed by human activity – an area where a built environment meets or intermingles with a natural environment. Human settlements in ...
.
List of wildfires
The following is a list of fires that burned more than , or produced significant structural damage or casualties.
Response
At the end of July 2021, Governor Kate Brown signed a bill to invest $220 million in wildfire prevention, preparedness, and response.
See also
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2021 Western North America heat wave
The 2021 Western North America heat wave was an extreme heat wave that affected much of Western North America from late June through mid-July 2021. Rapid attribution analysis found this was a 1000-year weather event, made 150 times more likely ...
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List of Oregon wildfires
References
External links
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Wildfires
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...
2021
File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...
2021 Oregon wildfires
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