GRANT COUNTY — The Rail Ridge Fire’s explosive growth has Grant County once again concerned about active wildfires and grappling with evacuation notices after a few weeks of relative calm.

Several major wildfires earlier this summer charred nearly 170,000 acres of public and private ground in the county, but now it appears the Rail Ridge Fire could be on pace to surpass that total all by itself.

On Monday, Sept. 2, the day it started, the fire blew up to more than 61,000 acres. The fire’s growth tempered over the next two days, sitting at 66,293 acres on the afternoon of Wednesday, Sept. 4.

The fire resumed its rapid growth that afternoon, swelling to 82,947 acres on the morning of Thursday, Sept. 5. By Friday, Sept. 6, it was a full-fledged megafire, surging past the 100,000-acre mark.

By Monday, Sept. 9, the fire had grown to 146,601 acres while containment crept up to 7%. 

Currently burning a mere 7 miles south of Dayville, the fire covers parts of Grant and Crook counties and has led to Level 3 “Go Now” evacuation advisories for the town of Dayville, along with a strip of land in between Smokey and Johnson Creeks on the south to Highway 26 on the north, running east to Marks Creek and west to the Crook County line.

Grant County Emergency Management Coordinator Eric Bush said citizens of Dayville should be ready to move should the town get hit with a Level 3 evacuation notice.

“Level 2 is designed to inform people to be set, be ready to move if they have to evacuate or if they choose to evacuate,” he said. “When we sense a fire is moving a particular direction, and we believe that the fire is likely going to … make it to a certain area, we’ll put that area in Level 3.”

Dayville School has been holding classes, but administrators have made plans to evacuate at a moment’s notice.

“Please know, the safety of students will always be our highest priority,” school officials said in an email to families. “We will continue to monitor the situation, evaluate and revise plans, and keep parents informed.”

Bush said the town’s response has been impressive given how little time it’s had to prepare for the fire.

“I’m really impressed with the little community at Dayville and the work they’ve done to plan, and they’re as prepared as they can be, in my view,” he said.

Level 1 “be ready” evacuation zones also stretch as far south as the Izee-Paulina Highway and Swamp Creek Lane, from the Crook County line in the west to Forest Service Road 21 in the east.

Terrain presents challenges

The Rail Ridge Fire ignited on the South Fork of the John Day River after a storm system moved through the area. Lightning strikes sparked multiple fires that later merged into a single blaze. The fire jumped from the west side of the river to the east and quickly spread into the Murderers Creek drainage.

It’s an area of steep hills, narrow canyons and vast swaths of extremely dry grass and brush studded with juniper and pine trees, a combination that has helped spur the fire’s rapid growth.

Cody Norris, the public information officer for the Rail Ridge Fire, said fire crews used the help and knowledge of locals to assess the terrain and conditions while formulating a plan to combat the fire.

“Wildland firefighters are trained to respond to different terrains,” he said. “They might come from other areas, but local folks will give them kind of a lowdown on what the terrain looks like, what they’re facing, what the vegetation is like, how dry it is, that gives them a really good idea of the tools in the toolbox to utilize.”

The fire’s rapid growth was also a concern, but Norris said wildland firefighters are trained to aggressively attack even the most challenging fires without putting lives in danger. 

Norris said firefighters can quickly identify when the terrain is working against them or the fire has started pushing in on them from multiple directions.

Bush said the terrain in the fire’s active zone is going to make it challenging to bring firefighting resources to bear.

“It’s very remote,” he said. “The road infrastructure is pretty … austere and so it’s just a challenge to get the firemen out there on the ground in a safe way.”

Robust Day One spread

An abundance of extremely dry grass, gusty winds and multiple lightning strikes all contributed to the fire’s explosive growth on the critical first day, Norris said.

“In this case, it was kind of the perfect storm, right?” he said. “(We) had a storm system come through with not much moisture (and) broad lightning to the area caused multiple starts.”

With that type of quick and robust fire growth, time is of the essence. Sadly, Bush said, there wasn’t enough of it for local landowners to react.

“There simply wasn’t time for people to get out there and, in some areas, get their cows off of grazing allotments or get up to their secondary residences and prepare for the fire,” he said. “There just wasn’t time for that.”

As a result, Bush said, some livestock and second homes have been lost to the fire.

Help on the way

Outside help to fight the fire began flowing in, but not as quickly as many would have liked.

Early Thursday, there were only about 100 people working the fire, according to Norris. That number was expected to swell to 500 by Thursday night, but some additional assets failed to materialize, and as of Friday morning there were still just 238 personnel assigned to a blaze that had grown to 107,000 acres. 

Shortly after noon, however, local and state emergency declarations were issued, allowing the governor to authorize additional firefighting resources to respond. The Oregon State Fire Marshal announced it was sending an incident management team and three structural task forces that day on top of crews dispatched earlier in the week.

The number of firefighters battling the blaze rose sharply from 238 on Friday morning to 739 on the morning of Monday, Sept. 9. 

Other agencies that had already deployed to combat the Rail Ridge Fire include the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and local Rangeland Fire Protection Association members.

“All these folks are working together through agreements to really come in and help do everything they can to put the fire out as quickly as they can,” Norris said.