OAKRIDGE, Oregon — A steady rain doused Oregon’s wildfire country over the weekend, raising hopes that this fire season may not be as disastrous as officials feared just a few months ago.
That would be good news for the Forest Service, which headed into the summer scrambling to hire seasonal firefighters and refill the ranks of fire-qualified employees who took the agency’s deferred resignation offer earlier this year.
The traditional wildfire season’s not quite done — it lasts through September into early fall and could still flare up — but if the trend lasts, worries that a short-staffed Forest Service could be overwhelmed by wildfires here may prove unfounded.
With the exception of the 32,000-acre Emigrant Fire on the Umpqua National Forest — not a megafire by today’s standards — the region hasn’t seen many big fires this summer.
