As I write this, on Friday morning, no fewer than four wildfires are threatening residents of Grant County.

The Falls Fire, a human-caused blaze that started in the Harney County portion of the Malheur National Forest on July 10, has blown up to 114,000 acres in nine days and has spread into portions of southern Grant County. It has forced the evacuation of the Silvies Valley Ranch resort and led to evacuation notices for residents of the scattered ranches south of the Izee-Paulina Highway. Residents of Seneca and the northern Bear Valley area have been notified to be prepared to get out at a moment’s notice.

On the county’s northwestern edge, folks in the Kimberly area (including our office coordinator, Alix Hand), have been keeping an anxious eye on the Lone Rock Fire, an 84,000-acre blaze that has forced a number of evacuations in neighboring Wheeler County and has put the community of Spray on Level 2 “be set” evacuation status. A dear friend who lives between Spray and Fossil has already been forced to leave her home.

To the north, lightning-sparked wildfires in Umatilla County are threatening the Grant County community of Dale, which is under a Level 1 “be ready” advisory. At last check, Highway 395 was closed between Long Creek and Ukiah because of the fires.

Last night the Top Road area north of Monument was evacuated because of the fast-moving Boneyard Fire, which jumped from 300 to 800 acres on Thursday afternoon. The surrounding area was on level 2 “be set” status, and the town of Monument was under a Level 1 “be ready” advisory. 

I just got off the phone with Soo Yukawa, who writes a weekly column for the paper about doings at the Monument Senior Center. She told me she wouldn’t be able to write her column this week — she was too busy prepping her property against the advancing flames and getting her family ready to evacuate if the blaze gets too close.

Here at the Eagle, we are doing our best to keep up with the rapid-fire pace of updates and alerts from the various agencies responding to these fires.

We will continue to post as many of these as we can, as quickly as we can, on our website. Keep an eye on our home page for the latest updates, and click on the wildfires tab in the navigation bar to see all our coverage.

And, as always in these kinds of emergencies, we will keep all of these alerts and updates outside our paywall so that anyone can read them on our site, whether they have a paid subscription or not. 

Keep your family close. Check on your neighbors. And, above all, stay safe.