Central Oregon skies are filled with smoke today, which lead many people to inquire whether there are large fires in the area causing these smoky conditions.
There are no large fires in Central Oregon right now. The smoke is most likely blowing in from wildfires around Crater Lake, from southwest Oregon and from northern California. The afternoon is typically when fires become most active as temperatures increase, humidity drops, and winds pick up.
There have been a number of small fires, less than one acre, over the last week, in addition to some larger ones. The largest in the last 24 hours has been the Bessie Butte Fire, which is holding at 50 acres, along China Hat Road on Deschutes National Forest. Smoke from the Substation Fire did not move south into Central Oregon and the Cemetery Fire, now fully contained at 1,400 acres in the Maury Mountains, did not push smoke across Central Oregon, either.
To find out more about wildfires outside the area, visit https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/
Inciweb posts news and information about large wildfires across the country and can help tell the story of where the smoke above our skies is coming from.
