A wildfire east of Mount Hood grew rapidly Monday night, prompting fresh evacuations overnight and a road closure Tuesday morning.
To the south and west, meanwhile, a separate fire grew overnight, prompting the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office to order people in a sparsely populated, forested area to evacuate.
The Grasshopper Fire remained the bigger risk to life and property near Mount Hood.
Wasco County deputies worked overnight to evacuate residents of newly endangered areas in its path, including the Sportsman’s Paradise manufactured home community near Dufur.
FILE - The Grasshopper Fire burns in the mountains west of Friend, Ore., on Aug 3, 2026.
Eli Imadali / OPB
With firelines shifting rapidly, the sheriff’s department says people who live near the fire should enter their addresses in the Wasco County Perimeter Map to see whether they should leave the area or prepare for possible evacuation.
More than 1,600 firefighters and other first responders are actively working to limit the Grasshopper Fire, which has scorched 120 square miles of forest and grasslands.
A video shared on Facebook by night-shift dozer operators shows heavy equipment deepening a trench as firefighters in reflective gear stood shoulder to shoulder facing the encroaching flames.
The Oregon Department of Transportation announced it has closed a 12-mile stretch of Oregon Highway 35 between U.S. 26 and the community of Parkdale indefinitely to support firefighting efforts. The drive between those communities, usually around half an hour long, is likely to take more than two hours due to detours.
The Grasshopper Fire was 20% contained as of Tuesday morning.
Smoky skies, fiery outlook
Wildfires have burned nearly 2.3 million acres across Oregon so far this year, an area larger in size than the state of Delaware.
With more than a dozen fires still actively burning, skies east of the Cascade Mountains have been choked by smoke for weeks. An air quality alert is in effect for Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington through at least Thursday, and the National Weather Service says air quality will remain poor “until further notice” in some communities.
The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center warned on Tuesday morning that all of Oregon and much of Washington remain under a fuel and fire behavior advisory. The agency, which convenes and coordinates firefighting groups and experts, said the risk of more big fires remains high.
The Wrights Spring Fire in Klamath County continued to grow Monday into Tuesday near Southern Oregon.
The Wrights Spring Fire as seen on the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 7, 2026, from Sprague River Road in Klamath County, Ore.
Nancy Jones, Northwest Team 8 / InciWeb
Crews are still trying to contain the boundaries of the fire, and are focused on protecting small communities in the area and keeping the flames away from fuel storage, Ben Curtis, an operating section chief on the fire, said in a video briefing Tuesday morning.
Ranch structures may have been damaged Monday on the fire’s eastern flank, and other structures and agricultural lands could be in its path Tuesday.
A dozer operator, Jason Ensign of Klamath Falls, died last week while helping firefighting crews.
Emergency shelters have been set up in Chiloquin and Bonanza, and the Klamath County Fairgrounds is offering shelter for large livestock.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the first name of the person who died fighting the Wrights Spring Fire. His name is Jason Ensign. OPB regrets the error.
