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Here is the latest from Oregon Live, this morning:

Planned backburn spooks some residents

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
The Associated Press
8/3/02 2:58 AM

SELMA, Ore. (AP) -- Flames and smoke erupting from a planned burnout between a containment line and the highway made residents here wary despite assurances from the U.S. Forest Service that the blaze was well under control.

Firefighters continued using drip torches and flare pistols Friday to burn up the one- to two-mile strip of brush and timber to make it harder for the 150,000-acre Florence Fire to spread.

A dense cloud of black-and-purple smoke roiled over the Illinois Valley like an angry bruise and ridges of flame and gray smoke from the burnout were visible from the highway.

"What I'm seeing and what I'm hearing are two different things," said Shari Anderson as she watched the inferno behind Eight Dollar Mountain from her front yard. "It's scary."

Fire officials said the situation might turn the corner within the next two days, particularly if cooler and wetter weather arrived as predicted.

"On our present course, over the next 48 hours we may be in a position to say we have significantly reduced the threat to the Illinois Valley corridor," said Mike Lohrey, the incident commander of the elite Forest Service team managing the eastern flank of the fire in southwestern Oregon.

In all, more than 438,000 acres were burning across Oregon, but more than 200,000 of those acres were in the Sour Biscuit and Florence fires, burning within a couple miles of each other on the Siskiyou National Forest.

With confidence improving on the eastern flank, a new management team and 1,200 firefighters and support crews were preparing to battle the western flank, setting up camp at the Curry County County Fairgrounds in Gold Beach.

The burnout -- which removes brush and other fuels that could feed the wildfire -- was cause for smiles in fire camp, where commanders told crew bosses that everything was going as planned.

In some places, the burnout created its own wind as it spread up a narrow ravine that acted as a chimney, drawing the heat and flames along. Sounds like gunshots came from rocks and trees cracking in the intense heat. Some trees that were merely scorched took on a gray cast, their needles frozen as if the fire-driven wind were still blowing.

Weather was forecast to continue cool and humid through the weekend, with gentle winds and a possibility of rain late Sunday.

Though four of the seven structural firefighting task forces called in by the governor were released because of the diminishing threat to homes, resources to fight the wildfire raging in the forest continued to pour in, including 100 elite firefighters from Canada and fire managers from Australia and New Zealand.

Here are some of the other major wildfires burning in Oregon:

----Cache Mountain fire, burning on 4,200 acres 15 miles northwest of Sisters, 95 percent contained.

----Toolbox Fire, burning on nearly 87,000 acres in Lake County, 75 percent contained.

----Malheur-Flagtail complex, 26,700 acres near Prairie City, 90 percent contained.

----Tiller Complex, 26,400 acres east of Canyonville, 25 percent contained.

----Timbered Rock Fire, 16,925 acres 20 miles north of Medford, 20 percent contained.