With continued warm weather, dry vegetation, and the recent threat of lightning, officials are ratcheting up the fire restrictions in south central Oregon. The fire danger level will rise to "High" (yellow) first thing Friday morning in Klamath and Lake counties, according to the South Central Oregon Fire Management Partnership.
"The High Fire Danger is an indicator of that conditions have the potential for rapid fire spread and major damage," SCOFMP said in a statement.
The Oregon Department of Forestry's public regulated use closure will go into effect on Friday, which applies to all private, county and state wildlands. For industrial activities like timber harvesting, the Industrial Fire Precaution Level will also be raised to II (two) — restricting activity on Fremont-Winema National Forest and BLM Lakeview District lands to between 8 p.m. to 1 p.m. local time for power saws except at loading site, cable yarding, blasting, welding and cutting of metals.