“It’s kind of a dubious honor,” said Oregon Department of Forestry spokesperson Marcus Kauffman of the fire that started July 6 and had charred 400,389 acres by late Friday morning, with 40% contained.
“But it’s not all bad news,” he said. “In the last couple of days, the fire has only grown 1,000 acres per day, and for a fire of this size, basically that’s a really strong signal that fire behavior is moderating.”
Still, there’s “a long road ahead of us to ensure the safety of the surrounding communities,” said Joe Prummer with the Northwest Interagency Incident Management Team.
The smoke has traveled far and wide and is expected to continue causing health problems across the US.
Many areas in the Northwest and Rockies, where the wildfires are burning, are also under air quality alerts. On Friday, the smoke is expected to move south, passing over Atlanta and Birmingham, Alabama, before it moves back to the Northeast.
Largest fire takes toll on crews
Nine firefighters tested positive for Covid-19, fire managers reported Thursday.
“Due to the number of positive cases, this will be reported to (the Oregon Health Authority) as a workplace outbreak,” the managers said. Anyone at a fire camp reporting symptoms — along with their close contacts — must isolate until Covid-19 results come back, under protocols developed with state health officials.
In addition, a firefighter got separated last weekend from his crew and was alone in the blaze for nearly three hours, officials said.
“He was not lost but got separated from his crew because he had to move in the opposite direction to maintain his own safety,” Kevin Keeler, a Nevada army guard helicopter pilot, said in a news release.
“The firefighter was in good spirits and was able to hike to the road to a waiting ambulance,” officials said.
Bootleg Fire chars carbon offsets
The trees in these forests, known as Klamath East, were meant to survive 100 years to remove climate-warming carbon from the atmosphere.
But since the Bootleg Fire started, flames have scorched nearly 90,000 acres of trees set aside to offset carbon emissions on behalf of businesses and individuals. That’s around a fifth of Klamath East’s total land, according to a CNN analysis.
It will be weeks after the fire is out before the company can assess the impact on its forests, said Patti Case of the Green Diamond Resource Company, which runs the carbon project at Klamath East.
“While it may seem that nothing would escape the flames, often we find areas after the fact that are merely scorched and will survive. In other cases, the fire burns so hot that everything is devastated, and replanting is a challenge,” Case said.
CNN’s Andy Rose, Dave Hennen, Chris Boyette, Daniel Wolfe, Tal Yellin, Renée Rigdon and John Keefe contributed to this report.