West Bakes in Another Weekend of Intense Heat as Wildfires Spread
Some communities say blazes complicate plans for a return of tourism after halt during Covid-19 pandemic
Intense heat began engulfing the Northern Rockies and High Plains, while high temperatures and dry air made matters worse for firefighters working to control dozens of wildfires burning across the parched West.
State leaders had issued emergency orders activating resources before the weekend, while some local communities said the blazes were complicating plans for a resurgence of tourism and local events after an interruption during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Heat waves have already engulfed Western states this summer, including one in June that left more than 100 people dead in the Pacific Northwest. Now a “heat dome” is expected to bring stifling temperatures over the weekend and early next week to the Northern Rockies and High Plains, including parts of Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming, according to an AccuWeather forecast.
It will be “dangerously hot, especially for those that are more vulnerable to the heat,” said John Wetenkamp, the science and operations officer for the National Weather Service in Billings, Mont., which put out an excessive-heat warning for noon Saturday through late Thursday.
July has already brought some scorching days to parts of Montana, he said, but residents now face a succession of them. Temperatures in Billings were climbing Saturday and could hit 102 degrees on Sunday and 105 on Monday—potentially breaking a record set in 1960.
There was, however, a chance that smoke from nearby wildfires could reduce some of the heat, according to AccuWeather.
Meanwhile, officials in several states said the long-term drought, low humidity and heat are making it harder to handle fires.
The largest fire currently burning in the U.S., the Bootleg Fire in south central Oregon, was 22% contained Saturday morning after growing by 40,000 acres Friday night and was sprawled over 281,208 acres, said Marcus Kauffman, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Forestry.
Temperatures in the area of the Bootleg Fire are about 5 to 10 degrees above normal, though they still aren’t as high as a few weeks ago, said Misty Firmin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Medford, Ore.
The safety concern isn’t so much the warm weather as the low humidity, dry and gusty winds and vegetation that is much drier than normal for mid-July.
“Tinder dry,” Mr. Kauffman, of the Oregon forestry department, said of grass, shrubs, brush and trees there. “If there’s a spark that flies from that fire, it will ignite.”
The fires are generating their own extreme weather. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory said Friday that current wildfires are generating a record number of pyrocumulonimbus clouds—created by intense heat driving air rapidly upward from a fire.
This phenomenon has occurred in the Bootleg Fire, pulling embers, branches, leaves and particulates aloft in a column that then comes down with a force that intensifies the blaze, said Mr. Kauffman.
Nationally the current fire season has so far been on par with recent years. More than 70 large active fires have burned nearly one million acres across the West.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Friday declared a state of emergency in 19 counties, saying unprecedented heat there caused failures to roads, bridge joints and other types of infrastructure.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in three Northern California counties that have endured evacuations and damages to critical infrastructure from the Beckwourth Complex Fire—lightning-induced blazes that as of Saturday totaled 105,348 acres and were 70% contained.
‘There’s really no relief in sight for the next several days.’— John Wetenkamp, National Weather Service
In Lassen County, which is included in the emergency order, organizers were working Saturday to prepare for the county fair. After a cancellation last year, this year’s slogan is “Back in the Saddle Again.”
Fire evacuees who were sheltering at the fairgrounds have been moved to Lassen Community College, said Holly Mueller, vice president of the fair advisory board. “Everybody is all hands on deck to make the fair happen,” she said. “Just to be able to draw the community back together.”
In a sign that the West’s drought is getting worse, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced Friday that it was taking the unprecedented action of releasing more water from reservoirs upstream to Lake Powell to help keep its level high enough for power generation.
The lake, which straddles the Arizona-Utah border, has fallen to a third of its capacity during drought conditions for much of the past two decades.
Lake Powell serves as the largest holder of Colorado River water after Nevada’s Lake Mead, and the turbines at Glen Canyon Dam generate power across the Southwest. According to the federal agency’s forecast released Friday, there is a 79% chance of Lake Powell’s falling under a threshold below which a power cutoff could occur.
In all, 181,000 acre-feet of extra water will be released through the end of the year from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Wyoming, Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado and Navajo Reservoir in New Mexico to raise Lake Powell by 3 feet.
“We hoped we would never have to go down this road, but now we have to,” Wayne Pullan, the bureau’s regional director in Salt Lake City, said in a video briefing with the media Friday.