1,000 Bolts of Lightning Spark 100 Oregon Fires

More than 100 lightning-sparked fires burned forest and grassland in Oregon on Sunday, including three blazes that spread across 58,000 acres of rangeland.

A monitoring system recorded more than 1,000 bolts of lightning that struck various parts of the state during the weekend, said Shawn Morford, spokeswoman for the Oregon Forestry Department.

In south-central Oregon, one fire rapidly swept across 44,000 acres of grass and sage in the Abert Rim area 25 miles north of Lakeview, said Linda Harmon, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management.

To the east of that blaze, a second fire burned 10,000 acres of grassland near Abert Lake. A third range fire 75 miles northwest of Lakeview reportedly involved 4,000 acres.

In eastern Oregon, 90 fires were counted in the Malheur National Forest, ranging in size from one-fourth acre to 200 acres, said Mike Ferris, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.

Thirty to 40 fires were reported in the Wallowa-Whitman Forest in the state’s northeast corner, he said.

Lightning touched off 21 fires in the Willamette National Forest in eastern Oregon, but crews dumping fire retardant had controlled or contained all of the blazes by Sunday, said Woody Williams, a Forest Service spokesman.

Some of the fires were in logging areas, and the Forest Service estimated that $200,000 worth of timber was destroyed.