John Day, Hines, and Prairie City, OR. — (September 20, 2021) The Malheur National Forest Fire Staff realize that prescribed burning is an essential part of fuels management in the Pacific Northwest. We anticipate having environmental conditions conducive for successful implementation of prescribed burning in the next couple weeks. We await regional conditions and direction to start implementing our plan.
Locally, the District Fuels Specialists will be having conversations with District Rangers (Agency Administrators) to ensure that all understand the risks and rewards and are all operating under the same vision to initiate broadcast, understory, or jackpot burns. There will also be coordination with our forest neighbors to be as efficient and least impactful to the public as we can while still accomplishing disturbance on the ground.
Malheur Forest Fire Staff will be addressing many of these details over the next few weeks to month, depending on how long this fire season continues. We recognize we’re still supporting our neighbors in the Pacific Northwest and California. This will be taken as efficiently and appropriately as possible while continuing to take care of each other through this challenging fire season.
With the potential for smoke to settle in certain areas during active operations, the public can monitor the smoke and air quality in our area and across the state by visiting, http://oregonsmoke.blogspot.com/.
Additional information regarding prescribed burning on the Malheur National Forest is available by viewing the Prescribed Fire Activity interactive map, by visiting www.fs.usda.gov/malheur or call the Supervisor’s Office at 541-575-3000.