Wildfires increasingly threaten endurance events in Lane County

When the Emigrant Fire started in the Willamette National Forest south of Oakridge last month, Todd Janssen rushed to evacuate dozens of runners competing in a 200-mile ultramarathon.

The Oregon 200, directed by Go Beyond Racing, started the morning of Friday, Aug. 22, at Greenwaters Park in Oakridge. The 47 runners who started had 100 hours to complete the point-to-point course, which traveled south to Toketee Lake.

Directors called off the event Sunday afternoon. Only five athletes finished the race. 

“For us, the biggest thing is how this impacts the runners,” Janssen said. Runners who spent a year or more training did not get to finish the 200-mile journey they had set out on. 

The Oregon 200 is not the only endurance event affected by wildfires in recent years. In 2022, the 50-kilometer McKenzie River Trail Run, Oregon’s oldest ultramarathon, moved its race indefinitely from September to June because wildfires and smoke interfered with the race for multiple years.

In July 2024, Mudslinger Events canceled its Sasquatch Duro gravel cycling event in Oakridge because of wildfires. The race director this year changed both the timing and location of the event so that it would happen in April in Carlton, Oregon, north of McMinnville, “after 8 seasons in Oakridge in the summer and one too many fire closures, unfortunately.”

In Oakridge, Cog Wild Bicycle Tours & Shuttles is expanding its permitted season into the spring and fall because conditions are increasingly unreliable during the summer.

“Wildfires have become a factor we must consider when hosting major sporting events in Lane County,” said J.B. Carney, senior director of sports at Travel Lane County. “It’s not just the east side of the county that can be affected. Air quality impacts can reach every community.”

Eugene hosted the USA BMX Lumberjack Nationals last August. Carney said the event generated close to $1 million for local hotels, restaurants and businesses in one weekend. A fire could have forced cancellation of the event, which would have been a major loss, he said.

“Where it wasn’t an issue a few years ago, we now have conversations with every event operator looking to host a late summer or early fall event in the community about the risks of wildfires and smoke and making sure we are all prepared,” Carney said.

According to the Oregon Department of Forestry, acres of land protected by ODF that were burned by wildfires were up 801% for the decade 2013-2022 (an average of 119,864 acres burned a year), compared to the previous decade (an average of 13,300). For the decade 1993 to 2002, an average of 23,287 acres burned a year. In those 30 years the highest year was 2020, with 541,372 acres burned.

As of Tuesday, Sept. 16, crews continued to battle the lightning-caused Emigrant Fire about 25 miles southeast of Oakridge, near Diamond Peak. The blaze was 36 percent contained with 32,354 acres burned.

Evacuating runners from the forest

For Janssen, who manages Go Beyond Racing with his wife, Renee, the trouble started around 3 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 24, some 56 hours into the ultramarathon. The race directors heard that a fire had started nearby, which they were able to confirm on the mobile app Watch Duty. 

They were already working on a plan to evacuate runners when the Forest Service contacted them and advised them to stop the race.

“When we’re putting on events, not only are we thinking about is there enough parking or how is the crew going to access the aid stations and that sort of thing,” Janssen said. “We also think about, if something happens, how are we going to get people out and how are we going to react and what resources do we use for that?”

Using data from the trackers the runners wore and information from firefighters in the area, the race directors worked to first evacuate the athletes nearest the fire. For each runner, Janssen drove to the nearest trailhead to where the tracker said they were, ran on the trail to find them and brought them back to his truck. Because cellphone coverage is spotty in the area, he used a mobile Starlink transceiver to communicate with Renee about the location of the next runner.

During one of the trail evacuations, Janssen and the runner were directly across a ravine from the fire.

“You could feel it, hear it. It was pretty incredible,” he said. “And (the runner) was moving very quickly and had a very serious look on his face.”

The remaining runners were advised to stay at the next aid station they encountered. Aid station volunteers shuttled the athletes back to Greenwaters Park, where race directors collected the trackers to ensure everyone was safely out of the forest. 

For runners who didn’t see the fire while on the course, the true effect of what was happening didn’t set in until they were on the road to Oakridge, Janssen said. As the sun started to set, the sky was glowing orange.

“Some of the Forest Service road turns just perfectly so you could see straight down where the fire was, and it was very, very, very dramatic, and people kind of realized what was happening,” he said. 

Participants asked the race directors about plans for the event next year, but Janssen said it was hard to think about that at a time when part of the course and course markings were on fire. 

“It’s a unique area in that there’s this magical window where you don’t get eaten by mosquitoes and the weather’s not too bad and the trails are all cleared,” he said. “It’s kind of a tight window for when events would work for this type of thing.”

Go Beyond Racing, which puts on other trail races in Oregon and has been hosting events since 2013, hosted the first Oregon 200 in 2023. Last summer, directors canceled the race about a month before it was set to start because of forest closures on much of the course. 

“It’s just been different for the last five or six years for our events … with the fires and smoke,” Janssen said. “There are a number of things that we do differently now because of that.”

One example is the race company switching to battery-powered generators for events because of Forest Service restrictions on gas-powered generators during wildfire season. Another is having protocols for the air quality index that vary depending on the length of the race. 

‘Once there’s a fire in the region, people stop coming’

Cog Wild Bicycle Tours in Oakridge shuttled three full vans of mountain bikers to trails during Memorial Day weekend this year.

On the Friday before Labor Day, Aug. 29, the shuttles were nearly empty, said Kirin Stryker, who owns the business with her husband. 

“What we see is once there’s a fire in the region, people stop coming,” she said. 

Oakridge is considered the mountain biking capital of the Northwest, and cyclists from around the world visit to explore more than 300 miles of single-track trails in the area, according to Travel Lane County. Cog Wild does guided mountain bike rides, skills lessons and runs vehicle shuttles to popular trailheads in Oakridge and in Bend, as well as multiday adventures on backcountry trails.

Stryker said wildfires have significantly impacted Cog Wild’s business the past five years. More customers are booking last-minute rides as they watch where the fires and smoke are having the biggest impact on air quality. Cog Wild offers “smoke checks” to customers who call to reschedule due to a high air quality index. Sometimes the business can suggest different trails where the air is clearer. 

“Over the last few years, we’ve had a decent amount of practice with this,” Stryker said. “People are fairly traumatized by the fire and smoke.”

Cog Wild has to weigh providing options with making the right decisions for the business. She said she doesn’t like to run shuttles with fewer than four people on them because it’s not economical, so Cog Wild will pre-emptively close shuttles for registration on its website if air quality conditions are poor. 

Stryker said wildfires have especially affected Cog Wild’s multiday tours, which used to include the North Umpqua Trail, which has been hit so hard by fire and floods in recent years that sections of the trail are gone. 

“In that sense, the fires have even changed our business model,” she said. 

Still, Stryker is staying positive. The Forest Service permits Cog Wild to operate on public land, and the business is working with the agency to expand its season by starting rides in April and continuing into November, as long as the trails are not too wet. 

“We’re just shifting and adjusting,” Stryker said. “The trails are fantastic, and they will be there when the rains come and put out this fire.”

She asked mountain bikers to be flexible and build extra time into their plans if a reschedule or trail adjustment is needed. She also asked that visitors not write off Oakridge.

“We need a wetting rain to put the fire out, and then we’re going to be back, and the fall season’s going to be freaking gorgeous,” Stryker said.