2016 Wildland Fire Season in the Pacific Northwest

The 2016 Pacific Northwest fire season came to a close with just under a half million acres burned in Oregon and Washington. The numbers were not staggering, like in 2015 when 1.8 million acres burned. 2016 was an average year in every aspect but one:
Humans caused 83% of the fires this year in the Pacific Northwest, compared to 63% of the fires in 2015. While the region had 22,000 recorded lightning strikes this summer, only 522 fires were ignited by lightning.
• Approximately 498,507 acres were affected by wildfire in the Northwest (NW):
o 192,483 acres in Oregon and 306,865 acres in Washington.
• There were a total of 2,541* reported fires in the NW Geographic Area:
o 1,219 in Oregon (human-caused 942, lightning-caused 277)
o 1,320 in Washington (human-caused 1,175, lightning-caused 145)
• There were 68 fires meeting large fire** criteria: 30 in Oregon and 38 in Washington.
• NW Incident Management Teams (Type 1 & Type 2) mobilized 17 times.
• To date, a total of 22,197 lightning strikes have been recorded. The largest number of strikes occurring in one day was 2,257 (June 7).
• In Oregon, the largest fire/complex is the Rail for a total of 41,706 acres.
• The largest fire/complex in Washington is the Range 12 at 176,600 acres.
• The estimated total firefighting cost to date exceeds $104,788,805; this includes $65,394,437*** in Oregon and $39,394,368*** in Washington.
• During peak fire activity, over 4,200 firefighters and support personnel were actively working on NW fires.
• In Oregon, fires affected 76,469 acres of Sage-Grouse habitat:
o Very high priority habitat = 0
o High priority habitat = 19,957 acres
o Moderate habitat = 56,511 acres
While our season has come to a close here, the southeast United States is experiencing a difficult late fire season. This month the Pacific Northwest has sent about 800 people, including several contract crews and resources, to help contain the many ongoing fires that have burned 1.3 million acres so far this year in the southern region.
Special thanks to video from David Corr showing Squad 21, out of the Fremont-Winema National Forest, working on the Bybee Creek Fire in Crater Lake National Park.
*OR & WA individual counts may not equal NW total. NW dispatch offices report for small portions of neighboring states.
**To be considered a “large fire”, a wildfire must be at least 100 acres in timber or 300 acres in grass or brush.
***not all costs have been reported
Video: Michael Campbell, BLM