FILE - The Grasshopper Fire burns in the mountains west of Friend, Ore., on Aug 3, 2026.
Eli Imadali / OPB
This is a developing story and may be updated.
Six houses and 15 smaller structures have been destroyed in the Grasshopper Fire on the east side of Mount Hood, the Wasco County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday. Officials are still working to identify if more structures have been lost.
About 200 other buildings remain threatened, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center.
In a Facebook post, the Wasco County Sheriff’s Office added that “damage assessments must take a secondary priority while firefighters remain actively engaged in suppressing the fire and reducing immediate threats.”
The Grasshopper Fire has burned more than 77,000 acres as of Wednesday afternoon. With more than 1,800 people involved in response efforts, it’s roughly 20% contained.
Wednesday morning, firefighters were tying together control lines and extinguishing hotspots to prevent rekindling ahead of windy conditions expected this weekend.
Officials have announced plans to cancel the Wasco County Fair due to “active fire danger and severe smoke.” The fair was set to start Thursday.
Wasco County Fair Board Member Ken Polehn said the danger would be too great if hundreds of people and their animals suddenly had to evacuate.
“There’s one way in, one way out,” Polehn said. “We just felt it was a public safety issue.”
A planned 4-H livestock show and auction would have featured animals raised by youth in the area. Polehn said the local 4-H youth organization is seeking alternate venues to show the animals later. This is the first time the fair has been canceled due to a wildfire, he said.
For Wasco County residents, the fair cancellation is just one of many disruptions caused by the Grasshopper Fire. Roads are closed, smoke chokes the air and hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes.
Lisa Sethmann, a distillery owner who lives in Friend, Oregon, has been evacuated since Sunday. She and her husband are staying in a hotel in The Dalles. She said the fire came close to their home, where a structural crew of firefighters was stationed.
She and her husband have had to reckon with what to take from home and what to leave behind.
“The thing that I really feel was the gift out of all of this was it put things really into perspective,” Sethmann said. “There’s a lot of things I want to take. That’s the culmination of travel and my life and of course my distillery… So it’s like, ‘What do you take out?’ Well, you just can’t take it all.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Sethmanns’ home and onsite distillery were still standing, though the land around them was badly burned.
A contributed image of Lisa Sethmann’s home in Friend, Ore., shown on Aug. 11, 2026. Sethmann and her husband have been evacuated from their residence since Sunday and are currently staying in a hotel. Fire crews are on the scene working to protect both her residence and on-site distillery.
Courtesy of Lisa Sethmann
Level 3 “Go Now!” and Level 2 “Get Set” evacuation orders are in place for many parts of Wasco and Hood River counties. Level 1 “Get Ready” orders are in effect for parts of those two counties, as well as parts of Clackamas County.
Officials encourage residents to check their own evacuation status through the Perimeter Map website.
By acreage burned, Oregon is experiencing its most severe wildfire season in recorded history, with its largest single fire ever burning in the southeastern corner of the state.
The Big Grass Fire, at 555,000 acres, is bigger than two other huge wildfires in recent history that also burned close to a half million acres or more: the Long Draw Fire of 2012 and the Biscuit Fire of 2002. According to wildfire officials, the Big Grass Fire is 35% contained and threatening 737 structures along the Oregon-Idaho border.
Joni Auden Land contributed to this report.
