The Flat fire in Central Oregon grew to nearly 22,000 acres by Sunday afternoon, with thousands 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.
The fire had zero percent containment as of Sunday afternoon, according to the Flat Fire Information Team, noting “there has been good progress in establishing” lines around some parts of the fire.
EJ Davis, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Forestry, said that breezy weather was expected on Sunday afternoon with gusts up to about 20 miles per hour.
Ms. Davis said that there was a 15 percent chance of thunderstorms with gusts that could help spread embers from burning trees.
“We have a lot of dry grasses that burn quickly but they can move fire fast,” she said.
More than 3,900 homes in Deschutes and Jefferson Counties were under some level of evacuation on Sunday, she 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.
Temperatures near the fire were expected to be in the mid-90s on 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 6,800-acre Pickett fire that started on Thursday in the Napa Valley near Calistoga and threatened wineries. On Sunday afternoon, containment was at 11 percent in Napa County.
More than 1,200 responders were working to put out the blaze using fire trucks on the ground and “assets from California’s aerial fighting fleet,” Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said on Sunday.
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 about 9,800 acres with zero containment on Sunday afternoon, 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.
Johnny Diaz contributed reporting.
Amy Graff is a Times reporter covering weather, wildfires and earthquakes.
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