Lightning sparks two small fires

The sluggish start to the wildfire season in Northeastern Oregon got a bit of a jolt Tuesday afternoon.

Lightning started a pair of blazes in the hills north of Burnt River Valley.

The larger of the two burned one acre in the Cottonwood Butte area about four miles northeast of Unity Reservoir, said Jerry Garrett, who works at the Northeast Interagency Fire Dispatch Center at the La Grande Airport.

Forest Service crews extinguished that blaze.

The second fire, which burned less than one-tenth of an acre, was several miles east of the Cottonwood Butte blaze, about three miles north of Hereford.

Lightning also sparked a couple of fires in Northeastern Oregon late last week, none of which burned more than an acre, Garrett said.

“Nothing’s really burning out there yet because everything’s so green, and we’ve had so much rain,” he said.

All of the thunderstorms that have crossed the region since Friday have brought copious rain along with fire-starting lightning bolts.

The Baker City Municipal Airport recorded .20 of an inch on Monday and .17 on Tuesday.

That brought the June total to 2.21 inches, almost one inch above the monthly average of 1.29 inches.

Despite those soggy statistics, local forests and, especially, rangelands, can easily be set aflame. That’s a prime worry for fire crews during the Independence Day weekend.

Fireworks, by the way, are prohibited on national forests, BLM land and most other publicly owned property.