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Smith River Complex North update for Wednesday, August 30, 2023

GRANTS PASS, Ore. – A shift in wind direction Tuesday cleared smoke out of the Illinois Valley, allowing aviation resources to go to work supporting ground crews who were working to keep the fire away from the homes, businesses and powerline corridor along Lone Mountain Road and Hwy 199.

Suppression efforts were also bolstered by Oregon Governor Tina Kotek’s issuance of a conflagration declaration, mobilizing the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Incident Management Blue Team and five structure protection task forces to assist Illinois Valley Fire District with structure protection. The task forces are from Marion, Polk, Lane, Benton and Klamath counties.

The Blue Team joined Northwest Incident Management Team 13 in unified command Tuesday. After in-briefing, crews spent the day integrating into operations and continuing surface preparations around homes and other structures.

With the OSFM task forces in place, wildland firefighters assisting with structure protection returned to primary fire suppression work. Thanks to retardant drops by aviation, crews can continue with more aggressive tactical firing operations to strengthen primary containment lines west of Lone Mountain Road and along Hwy 199.

Although a northeasterly wind will help by pushing the fire back onto itself today, it also brings two elements of critical fire weather – strong winds and poor overnight relative humidity recovery. Firefighters will monitor conditions carefully and make adaptations as needed.

A Level 3 – GO NOW evacuation remains in place for the Hwy 199 area south of O’Brien from milepost 38 to the state line. A Level 2 – GET SET evacuation is in place for O’Brien and the Takilma area. A Level 1 – GET READY evacuation is in place north to Cave Junction. An American Red Cross evacuation shelter is located at Rogue Community College in Grants Pass. Livestock can be sheltered at the Josephine County Fairgrounds.

Due to fire activity, the public is encouraged to monitor the Rogue Valley Emergency Management site at https://rvem.org for evacuation updates. An interactive Fire First Response Map showing evacuation areas can also be found there.

Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest has implemented an area and road closure order for the Smith River Complex. Visit the forest website for additional information at https://tinyurl.com/2s4hymku. The Bureau of Land Management Coos Bay District announced an emergency closure of public lands near the Oregon/California border. For additional information see https://www.blm.gov/orwafire.