Oregon Wildfire Continues To Grow, Destroying Homes Along the Way

A wildfire had spread in southeastern Oregon miles a day in windy conditions. This is just one of the several wildfires across the U.S. sources that are burning properties as firefighters struggle to control the spread of the wildfires.

Bootleg Fire had destroyed 67 homes and 117 outbuildings overnight in one county, while authorities were still tallying the losses in a second county where the flames had ravaged up to four miles a day, according to an Associated Press News report.

The wildfire has also forced 2,000 people to evacuate and threatened 5,000 buildings, including homes and smaller structures in a rural area just near the California border, according to fire spokeswoman Holly Krake.

Krake said that active flames are rampaging along 200 miles of the fires' perimeter. She added that it is expected to merge with smaller, yet equally explosive fire by nightfall.

Another spokeswoman for the firefighting operation, Sarah Gracey, said that erratic winds had created a dangerous condition for firefighters, according to The Guardian report.

Krake said that they are expecting the same conditions to continue and worsen in the weekend.

Wildfires had been harder to fight after dry conditions and heatwaves have swept around the region.

U.S. Wildfires

The Bootleg Fire is now 22 percent contained. Meanwhile, the Elbow Creek Fire that started on Thursday already prompted an evacuation from nearby small, remote communities.

In California, firefighters are pointing fingers at lightning strikes for the fast-growing fire in California's Lake Tahoe tourist area, according to an AFP News report.

Tamarack Fire has grown expansively more than 20,000 acres with no containment so far. Communities have already been evacuated, such as the case for Markleeville, which is near the Nevada border.

The National Interagency Fire Center said the outlook was for areas with hot, dry, and unstable weather conditions, particularly in northern Minnesota, Pacific Northwest, and Northern Rockies.

Around 20,000 firefighters and support staff are trying to contain the raging wildfires across the Western states.

More than 2.5 million acres have already burned this year.

Wildfire Statistics

There was an average of 62,805 wildfires annually and an average of 7.5 million acres affected annually from 2011 to 2020, according to Congressional Research Service Fact Sheet.

Seventy percent of the nationwide acreage burned by wildfire was on federal lands in 2020. Most wildfires are human-caused.

However, the wildfires caused by lightning tend to be slightly larger and burn more acreage.

Wildfires in the West are larger and burn more acreage, with around 26,000 burned around 9.5 million acres in the West in 2020. This is compared with the 33,000 fires that burned just under 0.7 million acres in the East.

Glen MacDonald, a Geography professor at UCLA, said that we are at a bad start when it comes to wildfires, according to a USA Today report.

MacDonald added that last year was a record year for wildfires. He noted that wildfires will expand through summer through Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, and California.

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Written by Mary Webber

WATCH: Raging wildfires take toll on Oregon firefighters - from Reuters