Awatchfire

Union County, Oregon

Middle Ridge Fire

Burning 4.9 miles west of Elgin and 6.3 miles north of Summerville, since Saturday 22 August.

Map of Oregon. The Middle Ridge Fire burns 56 miles from Baker City and 192 miles from Bend, and 247 miles from the state capital, Salem.
The fire sits 56 miles from Baker City and 192 miles from Bend.

138

acres burned so far

53

days burning so far

75%

of the perimeter held

The picture as of 9:09am today

The Middle Ridge Fire is still listed as active, and has not been looked at lately. Nothing has given off fresh heat for 1277 hours.

No fresh look at this fire for 1277 hours. Everything on the map below was seen before then.

Shaded relief map of the Middle Ridge Fire. Amber flames mark every place that gave off heat in the last day; the shading is the shape of the ground.
Heat in the last day Higher ground pale, valleys dark

1277hours

since anything was last seen giving off heat — about 4:15am on Sunday, local time.

81% less

energy in the last 1.1 hours of the record than in the 1.1 before them — the fire was cooler when it was last seen.

4.5miles

is how close the heat has come to Elgin at any point in the record. In the last day the nearest heat has been None miles from it, and the closest this fire has come to Summerville is 5.9 miles, None in the last day.

0.5miles

is the furthest any heat has been seen from the point on the official record — the width of the ground involved so far.

One larger fire is burning outside this frame: Hagen Fire 14.8 miles north-west at 61,380 acres. None of their heat is counted here.

Smoke has been recorded lying over this ground three times so far. The thickest of it was thin between 1:10pm and 4:30pm local time. The last of those windows closed 17 hours ago, so what is overhead now is not known.

Where the heat is

No cluster large enough to call a separate front. The heat is in one piece.

Conditions measured 10.5 miles from the fire: 59°F, air at 19% humidity, a 6 mph wind out of the east.

How it got here

One day of record on a day-55 fire

The record here begins at 1:58am on 23 Aug and runs to 4:15am on 23 Aug — 2 hours, 17 readings of heat. The fire is on day 55, so the first 54 days are missing: nothing showed up from above until the fire was large enough and the sky over it clear enough for it to be seen. There is no long arc to draw yet. What follows is what has actually happened.

Animated map of the Middle Ridge Fire across the whole record, with a time bar along the bottom showing energy released and the local date.
The whole record, 10 frames at 1 hour a frame. The bar along the bottom is energy released; the moving line is the clock.

Hour by hour local time

Sun 1:00amSun 4:00am

Each bar is one hour of local time, sized by how much energy the fire gave off in it. This fire is too young for a day-against-day comparison to say anything, so the hours are shown instead.

Day by day 1 day of record

  1. Map for Sun 23 Aug: flames mark every place that gave off heat that day.

    Sun23 Auglatest

    First readings

    • 17 heat readings
    • Heat from 1:58am to 4:15am
    • Spread 0.5 miles from the recorded point at its furthest
    • Burning through the pre-dawn

How the record has moved

Each step is a change on the interagency incident record — acreage, containment or crews — with the date it was reported. No satellite reading is involved.

  1. Saturday 22 August

    First reported at 25 acres

    25 ac

  2. Sunday 23 August

    138 acres on record

    138 ac

  3. Monday 24 August

    Grew to 150 acres — containment 0%, 81 personnel

    150 ac · 0% held · 81 crew

  4. Tuesday 25 August

    Revised to 138 acres

    138 ac · 0% held · 81 crew

  5. Tuesday 25 August

    Containment 30%

    138 ac · 30% held · 81 crew

  6. Wednesday 26 August

    Grew to 150 acres — containment 50%

    150 ac · 50% held · 81 crew

  7. Thursday 27 August

    Containment 75% — 52 personnel

    150 ac · 75% held · 52 crew

  8. Thursday 27 August

    Revised to 138 acres

    138 ac · 75% held · 52 crew

75% of the perimeter is being reported as held. 52 people are assigned to it. It has grown from 25 acres when it was first written down to 138 now. Nothing has looked at it for 1277 hours, and the record still lists it as active.