STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Wildfire season is underway. It hardly ever ends, and firefighters are battling several fires in the Northwest. Erik Neumann of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.
ERIK NEUMANN, BYLINE: Strong winds over the weekend are making firefighting efforts difficult in a rugged area along the Oregon-Washington border. The Burdoin fire started on Friday afternoon. It's burning 75 miles east of Portland on the Washington side of the Columbia River, threatening several small communities. Jodi Walker (ph) is a public information officer with Washington state's Department of Natural Resources.
JODI WALKER: This is extremely difficult. It's in a lot of grasslands that burn very fast and quickly. That wind just picks it up and carries it.
NEUMANN: The Burdoin fire has burned more than 8,700 acres as of Sunday afternoon. Fourteen homes have been destroyed and hundreds of people from the town of Lyle have been evacuated. This is the second serious fire to impact this part of the Columbia Gorge this summer after the Rowena fire destroyed 56 homes in June.
Further south in Central Oregon, the Cram fire is the largest active wildfire in the U.S. It started a week ago and has burned nearly a hundred thousand acres. Simone Cordery-Cotter is a spokesperson for the Oregon State Fire Marshal's office.
SIMONE CORDERY-COTTER: We are working with our sheriffs across three counties to drop evacuation levels. We're feeling really good about where the fire is at the moment.
NEUMANN: Temperatures have dropped at least 10 degrees over the past week. The causes of all three of these wildfires are under investigation. Active fires are burning in other parts of the West, too. In Arizona, the Dragon Bravo fire is still burning in Grand Canyon National Park. So far, it's burned more than 12,600 acres and is 8% contained. In Oregon, Governor Tina Kotek issued a statewide emergency declaration a few days ago in response to the high wildfire threat this summer.
For NPR News, I'm Erik Neumann in Vancouver, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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