A 2-alarm brush fire, which also burned a shipping container and a junk pile, drew a multiagency response to the Gales Creek Valley on Monday afternoon, including a hazmat team, law enforcement and state fire resources Monday afternoon.
People are shooting exploding targets and firing hot lead into dry vegetation in the Tillamook State Forest with predictable results: Five wildfires since May.
“These fires are all preventable,” said Stephanie Beall, acting District Forester for ODF's Forest Grove District.
On Wednesday, July 16, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek declared a state of emergency over the wildfires at the request of the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon State Fire Marshal. Forest Grove firefighters are once again aiding at statewide wildfires.
A pest that has destroyed over 10 million ash trees across the eastern United States is expected to reach its peak emergence in Oregon this month. First discovered in Oregon in trees growing at Joseph Gale Elementary, the insects are expected to devastate Oregon's ash trees.
The Oregon Department of Forestry is raising fire danger from moderate to high Monday in NW-02 and NW-03, the eastern and central portions of the Tillamook Forest and surrounding areas, including regions just outside of Forest Grove.
In advance of Independence Day, the Oregon Department of Forestry is raising fire danger from low to moderate in areas in and around the Tillamook Forest and near Forest Grove.
The Oregon Department of Forestry deployed 22 firefighters Friday to Canada and three states in what the agency said would be their "last big out-of-state resource push" until rains return this fall. One firefighter was out of the Forest Grove District.
A vague letter about a timber sale near Astoria started a year-long series of communication breakdowns that resulted in blowups at board of forestry meetings, an $8,000 mediator's bill and one board member—a Forest Grove resident and former Pacific University professor—quitting.
Ten of the 26 Oregon firefighters deployed this weekend to assist with wildfires in North Carolina are from the Northwest Oregon Area, headquartered in Forest Grove.
The Oregon Department of Forestry is sending six strike teams of firefighters and equipment to California, on the heels of 12 strike teams dispatched by the Oregon State Fire Marshal Wednesday morning.
