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Live webcam, Medford, OR. I think along the highway. Looks like at this time it is pretty smokey.

That looks very smokey and hazy!

KGWTV report on the Dalles Area Fire:

Fire Near The Dalles Grows Again
07/28/2002

By ANDREW KRAMER, Associated Press Writer

A sprawling wildfire near the Columbia River port town of The Dalles singed another 3,000 acres overnight and burned to within inches of some buildings but had not destroyed any homes by Sunday morning.

"The fire is continuing to pose serious control problems," as gusty winds periodically kick up the flames, said Peg Foster, an Oregon Department of Forestry information officer. She cited the danger of the smoke from the flames hitting electrical lines.

Crews had the Sheldon Ridge fire about 55 percent contained, she said.

Residents of 250 homes have been urged to evacuate since the lightning-started fire flared Thursday and spread into subdivided rural land along three roads about three miles south of The Dalles.

City workers also abandoned a water treatment plant, taking chlorine and other potentially dangerous materials with them. About 60 homes were without water. Two outbuildings have burned.

Stiff winds whistling through the Columbia River Gorge pushed the fire toward high-tension Bonneville Power Administration electrical wires overnight, Foster said.

The wires were still live Sunday, but if carbon-rich smoke thickens around the cables, it could cause the electricity from the lines to arc, endangering firefighters. If that danger intensifies, she said, authorities might switch them off and reroute power.

Some of the blaze's growth Sunday was accounted for by more accurate mapping of the charred ground behind fire lines, rather than a single advance into new terrain, she said.

Four heavy lift choppers swooped and hovered over the fire, dipping underslung buckets into a pond below and then dumping the water to help quench the flames.

One helicopter pilot had to deal with more than fire Saturday afternoon, reporting that a person on the ground pointed a rifle at him as he hovered over a pond.

The Wasco County Sheriff's office arrested Rocky Wade Bratner, 47, on charges of menacing and pointing a gun.

"Probably the guy didn't want him to take any more water," Hinatsu said. The pilot got water from another pond.

Fire managers said their strategy Sunday was to contain the wildfire using 66 fire engines deployed mostly along Mill Creek Road. They hoped to slow its advance toward the electrical cables carrying power from Columbia River dams to Portland, and prevent its creeping down a hillside toward The Dalles. The town was not considered threatened.

A contingent of 125 Oregon National Guard troops arrived Saturday to help about 650 firefighters.

The fire mostly crept along the ground, burning grass and chaparral on the slopes without climbing into the crowns of oak and pine trees and leaping along the tops.

It appears to be smokey south of Medford on I 5 at the Siskiyou Summit:

That picture looks like clear skies compared to my view. I'm about a mile from the foot hills and cannot see them. Ash is everywhere. The closest fire (that I'm aware of) is about 15 to 20 miles away. I'm probably in the safest rural property in Oregon, but TOO many are not that fortunate. Until yesterday we kept seeing flocks of crows and every other bird trying to find clean air. Today I've not seen a living creature. I can't tell you how angry I am. I wish Tom Daschle were here just so I could slap him.:<)