Residents evacuated from fast-growing Oregon fire

PORTLAND Ore. (Reuters) - A fast-moving Oregon brush fire that had grown to some 200 acres triggered the evacuation of 275 homes and shut a highway by Thursday, as firefighters battled to protect property and other structures, fire officials said.

The so-called Rowena fire, which erupted on Tuesday in the Columbia River Gorge in northern Oregon, had led to 75 homes being evacuated by Wednesday afternoon, with a further 200 residences threatened. The fire also forced the closure of a section of U.S. Highway 30.

But fire officials, in a statement posted on social media late on Wednesday, ordered the occupants of the remaining 200 homes under threat to flee. Local media said the wind-whipped flames were burning on steep terrain near the community of Rowena, on the outskirts of the city of The Dalles, and was threatening homes along the closed highway. Firefighters were to battle through the night.

The National Weather Service issued a "red flag warning" for northeast Oregon and southeast Washington state on Wednesday, indicating new wildfires are likely to spark and spread quickly in the region.

In Oregon alone, firefighters were battling a dozen wildfires across some 90,000 acres, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group said. Some 300 structures are threatened, numerous public lands are closed, and a major power transmission line to Idaho lies in the path of one of the fires.

The blazes are part of the broader West Coast fire season, which runs from mid-May to mid-October, which experts have said has been exacerbated by extreme drought in California and unusually dry conditions across Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

National Weather Service meteorologist Dan Byrd, who is monitoring a 10,500-acre complex of fires on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation dubbed the Logging Unit blazes, warned that the state could see dry lightning on Friday that could hamper firefighting efforts.

"With a high number of large fires burning in the Pacific Northwest and other parts of the country, firefighting resources are stretched thin," Logging Unit Fire incident commander Ross Williams said in a statement. "This may result in fires growing larger and causing more damage."

The Federal Aviation Administration told civilian pilots on Wednesday to avoid central Oregon's Oakridge State Airport so firefighting helicopters can take priority near the 115-acre so-called Staley Complex fires.

The 35,074-acre Beaver fire complex, which straddles the Oregon-California line and has destroyed six homes, was 42 percent contained late on Wednesday, fire officials said.

Near the Idaho border, a 4,000-acre fire threatened the homes of 160 people in the community of Imnaha, officials said. Also in eastern Oregon, residents near the 36,000-acre South Fork Complex fire were told to prepare for possible evacuations.

(Reporting by Courtney Sherwood in Portland, Oregon; Writing by Eric M. Johnson; Editing by Toby Chopra)