The Flat fire in Central Oregon doubled to more than 18,000 acres by Saturday morning, with hundreds of homes under evacuation orders and warnings and the wildfire expected to expand amid hot, windy weather, officials said.
The fire, which was burning six miles northeast of Sisters (pop. 2,957), started on Thursday. On Friday, it grew rapidly, spreading south through timber and grass, as winds picked up in the late afternoon.
Gert Zoutendijk, a spokesman for the Oregon State Fire Marshal, said breezy weather was expected again on Saturday, with gusts up to 20 miles per hour.
“We think it could potentially move again if our fire lines don’t hold,” he said.
More than 1,000 homes in Deschutes and Jefferson Counties were under some level of evacuation on Saturday.
“We do know a handful of structures have been burned, but we don’t know the exact number or what types of structures they are,” Mr. Zoutendijk said.
The cause of the Flat fire is under investigation.
Sisters, which is 150 miles southeast of Portland, and the surrounding wilderness are popular in the summer for hiking, camping and fishing. The area was under a heat advisory on Saturday that will remain in place until at least Sunday as a heat wave bakes Oregon.
Temperatures near the fire were expected to be in the mid-90s on Saturday and Sunday. On Monday, temperatures will likely be in the low 90s.
The Flat fire is one of several burning in the West amid a spell of hot weather that is expected to persist through the weekend.
In Northern California, firefighters were gaining control of the 4,690-acre Pickett fire that started on Thursday in the Napa Valley near Calistoga and threatened wineries. On Saturday, containment was at 7 percent.
In Southern California, moisture from a big storm that was over north central Mexico on Friday moved into the region and caused some thunderstorms over the mountains.
Lightning started several fires in the Angeles National Forest, though as of early Saturday afternoon none of them had grown into conflagrations.
And in Wyoming, people were forced to evacuate quickly from a campground and ranches when the Dollar Lake fire exploded on Thursday in a popular recreation area, 40 miles north of Pinedale.
The blaze, which was 5,000 acres with zero containment on Saturday, sent out pyrocumulonimbus clouds — towering clouds of smoke and thunderstorms — on both Thursday and Friday.
“The fire makes its own mini thunderstorms above the smoke column,” said August Isernhagen, incident commander on the fire. “It’s like a mini volcano erupting.”
Mr. Isernhagen said these clouds are a sign of explosive fire behavior.
“The fire has to be burning intense enough to create that heat and send out the smoke column,” he said.
Amy Graff is a Times reporter covering weather, wildfires and earthquakes.
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