Rain helped cool Flat fire that destroyed homes in Oregon, while the Pickett fire has charred 10 sq miles of Napa county
A wildfire that destroyed four homes in central Oregon has started to stabilize, while a blaze in northern California wine country has so far spared some of the state’s most famous vineyards.
Moisture helped the 1,200 firefighters battling Oregon’s Flat fire, but more work needed to be done, authorities said. Dry, hot weather had fueled a rapid expansion of the blaze across rugged terrain in Deschutes and Jefferson counties since the fire began late on Thursday.
“Gotta love mother nature. It brought in a little bit of rain. Cooled the temps, relative humidity came up,” Travis Medema, the state’s chief deputy state fire marshal, told a community meeting in the town of Sisters on Monday. “The incident, for the first time in the last three days, is really beginning to stabilize.”
Officials said firefighters had protective lines of some sort around the entire fire, including roads, but the fire remained at 5% containment.
