Oregon and Washington have burned a combined 1,322,187 acres so far this year, a figure that as of July 26 already exceeds the ten-year average for an entire fire season in the two states, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center.
That figure already exceeds the typical ten-year average for an entire year in the two states combined, and stands in stark contrast to 2025, when the two states burned roughly 570,000 acres across the whole season, well under half of what has already burned this year.
Two smaller but still significant fires, the roughly 24,000-acre Hagen fire in northeast Oregon and the 15,000-acre Grasshopper fire near Mount Hood, round out the state's list of large, actively burning incidents, bringing the number of large fires statewide to 34.
That concentration of population inside a single evacuation zone is part of why the highway closures Klick'ump described became so dangerous so quickly: with both roads out of the area blocked at once, there was effectively no route left for a resident trying to leave on their own timeline rather than the fire's.
An air quality scientist with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency separately rated conditions earlier this month at roughly a 3 on a scale of 10, using the severe September 2020 smoke event, when Seattle briefly registered among the worst air quality of any major city in the world, as the 10.
Thirty-four large fires are burning across Oregon, Washington is fighting its own record fire near Nespelem, and the two states have already topped 1.3 million combined acres burned, exceeding the ten-year average for a full season with the most dangerous month still ahead.