Officials at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland, which predicts major fire potential and coordinates response, said Tuesday that even though we had a rainy spring and late-season snow, the outlook for this summer is not great.
A few months of rain can’t erase years of drought conditions in a lot of the state, and eastern Oregon and Washington have a good chance of being at or above normal temperatures through August.
"We're seeing persistent drought signals primarily in central Oregon but also in southwest Oregon in and creeping in and worsening in central Washington as well," said an official at a news briefing. "Those are proportionally worse in 2022 than they were at this time in 2021."
Most of the wildfires in the Northwest are caused by humans and the statistics prove it.
Last year, 65% of fires in Oregon were human caused. In Washington, 88% were human caused.
Fire officials beg you to be careful whether you’re out in the wilderness or just in your own backyard.