Crews douse fire near Unity Reservoir

Firefighters had help from heavy equipment in the air and on the ground Monday to stop a 30-acre lightning fire near Unity Reservoir that came within about a mile and a half of several homes.

No structures were damaged, and none was threatened today.

The fire was 90 percent contained Monday night, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), which is coordinating the firefighting effort.

Fire crews from the ODF and the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest worked on the blaze Monday.

A bulldozer carved control lines around parts of the blaze, and a pair of single-engine air tankers, along with one DC-7 heavy tanker, dumped retardant to block the spread of flames.

The fire burned in juniper, grass and brush on private land near China Creek, northeast of the King Ranch, about five miles north of Unity Reservoir.

Wallowa-Whitman, ODF and Keating Rural crews doused a lightning fire about three miles east of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center on Monday. The fire burned about 1fi acres.

A total of 19 lightning-caused fires have been confirmed since Sunday, when the first round of thunderstorms crossed the region, according to the Blue Mountain Interagency Dispatch Center in La Grande.

Most of those fires burned less than an acre.

Tuesday morning crews were en route to a fire in the Bulger Flat/Antelope Peak area northwest of Haines. Smoke from that fire was visible from Baker Valley.

Updated information about local fires is available online at: http://bmidc.org/incinfo.shtml