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The fire, which began following a lightning storm, is in the checkerboard of public-private forest ownership. It has grown to 9 acres and was 44% contained as of Thursday afternoon.
This story may be updated.
A 9-acre wildfire is burning about 4 miles southeast of Marcola in steep terrain in a forested checkerboard of ownership between the Bureau of Land Management and timber companies.
As of Thursday morning, July 23, firefighters on the ground and in the air worked to build containment lines around the Hells Hill overnight as it flared. The fire broke out Wednesday evening after more than 300 lightning strikes touched down across Lane County.
No homes are threatened.
By Thursday afternoon, the fire was 44% contained with hose around it, according to Jessica Neujahr, an Oregon Department of Forestry public information officer.
Resources from the Oregon Department of Forestry include eight engines, one crew, and two bulldozers. Mohawk Valley Rural Fire District also supported the response, with a Type 1 helicopter assisting through the Bureau of Land Management.
The fire is burning on BLM land, and the Oregon Department of Forestry is responding under the Western Oregon Operating Plan. The interagency agreement between the state and the federal government governs fire protection across the checkerboard of public and private ownership in the region.
The checkerboard around Hells Hill is part of a broader pattern across Lane County, where public and private lands are interspersed mile by mile in what’s known as the O&C checkerboard — a legacy of a 19th century railroad land grant later reclaimed by the federal government.
BLM is currently revising its Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Resource Management Plan, which guides roughly 2.5 million acres of O&C lands, including about 277,000 acres in Lane County that run parallel to Interstate 5.
The Trump administration has pushed to sharply increase logging on those lands, pointing to harvest levels from the 1960s and 1970s. Conservation groups and trade associations are divided on what the O&C lands should prioritize — permanent timber production or ecological protection, a debate that has simmered for decades and is now taking on new form in a warming climate and era of megafires.
A Weyerhaeuser timber parcel sits adjacent to the BLM parcel where the Hell Hills Fire burns. Weyerhaeuser sent a water tender, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry.
Kyleigh Gill, a spokesperson for Weyerhaeuser, said the fire is not currently burning on its property.
In addition to the water tender, Gill said Weyerhaeuser has provided a D6 bulldozer to help construct fire line and two additional portable water tanks. Weyerhaeuser also is providing access to a fire pond on its property, she said.
“We appreciate ODF’s hard work during an already challenging fire season,” Gill said.
