Wildfires in Oregon have burned more acres of land in 2024 than in any year since reliable records began, authorities said, with the mid-August peak of fire season still on the horizon.
Blazes have scorched more than 1.4 million acres, or nearly 2,200 square miles, Northwest Interagency Coordination Center spokesperson Carol Connolly said. That’s more than any other year since 1992, when reliable records began to be kept, she said, and surpasses the previous record set in 2020.
Connolly said 71 large fires have burned the vast majority of the land this year. Large fires are defined as those that consume more than 100 acres of timber or more than 300 acres of grass or brush.
Thirty-two homes in the state have been lost to the fires, she said, which have been fueled by high temperatures, dry weather and low humidity.
Some of the fires in Oregon’s previous record-worst year, 2020, were among the worst natural disasters in the state’s history. Blazes over Labor Day weekend killed nine people, burned more than 1,875 square miles and destroyed thousands of homes and other structures.
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