Fire officials say the 2025 wildfire season in Oregon and Washington could look a lot like last year’s expensive and destructive wildfire season. The region is at an elevated risk for large and costly fires, according to a forecast out this week.

Wildfire risk will likely be elevated along the Columbia River Basin starting in June, said John Saltenberger, the fire program manager at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center.

In July, Eastern Oregon and most of Washington will also see elevated fire risk, Saltenberger said.

“This looks pretty similar to what we were anticipating for last year,” he said. “By August we anticipate that all of Oregon and Washington will be at elevated risk.”

Last year, Oregon saw its most destructive fire season in modern times, in terms of acres burned. By late July 2024, the state had become the nation’s top firefighting priority.

At one point in August, there were more than 13,000 firefighters working throughout the state to knock down the wildfires.

By the time fire season ended, more than 1,000 wildfires had burned through 1.9 million acres across Oregon. That included six “megafires” that, at their peaks, had fire perimeters larger than 100,000 acres each.

It was Oregon’s most expensive wildfire season, with an estimated cost of $350 million. The Oregon Legislature held a special session late last year to figure out how to pay for it.

For the country as a whole, Saltenberger said, long range outlooks forecast warmer than normal temperatures for June, July and August. And he said fire officials anticipate some areas in the Pacific Northwest, Northern California and the Northern Plains will be unusually dry.

“That’s similar to last year, perhaps even a little bit worse,” he said.

Some variables still make it hard to predict how severe the fire season will be.

“The real deciding factor for the Pacific Northwest will be, as we get into fire season, where will we get strong winds in conjunction with fire starts and lightning?” Saltenberger said. “That’s difficult to anticipate far out in advance, but the background drought is anticipated in high fire danger.”

He said people should always be prepared for a fire outbreak and should always follow fire restrictions.

“There may be restrictions on campfires and barbecues at campsites as we get into fire season,” Saltenberger said. “It’s really important for folks to pay attention to those and follow them, because every nuisance fire that wildland firefighters have to deal with is one less problem fire that they’ll be available to deal with.”

On Thursday, the Oregon Public Utility Commission held an event with the state’s electricity providers to mark the beginning of National Wildfire Awareness Month and to promote wildfire prevention resources.

“We saw the tragic consequences of extreme weather this January in Los Angeles and in Oregon’s record-breaking 2024 wildfire season,” Oregon PUC Commissioner Letha Tawney said at the event. “Even as Oregon electric utilities invest billions to reduce wildfire risk, customers need to prepare for outages when fire danger is high. The changing risk of extreme wildfires touches every Oregon community and requires us all to take steps to reduce the risk of catastrophe.”

The commission noted that wildfire resources, including how to stay informed, how to develop an emergency plan, what should be in a go-kit, and what to know about evacuation levels, are always available at wildfire.oregon.gov.

More wildfire resources:

• Wildfires and air quality updates
• How to tighten up your emergency plan
• Here’s who is most at risk from wildfire smoke and how to protect yourself
• How to prepare for wildfire smoke
• Fire season glossary: Important wildfire terms and their definitions

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/02/oregon-washingtonn-destructive-wildfire-season/