This story was updated at 3:55 p.m. on July 24, 2026 to include details about Gov. Kotek's visit.
Residents in Central Oregon braced for high winds and more hot weather this weekend, as Gov. Tina Kotek visited the small town of Sisters on Friday to visit the frontlines of the Akawa Butte Fire, the nation’s top firefighting priority.
At a press conference, flanked by fire officials, the governor said there are currently 1,200 fires burning statewide. Crews are mobilizing from all over the West to help, with more from Australia and New Zealand set to arrive next week.
“This is all hands on deck here in Oregon,” Kotek said. “We’re seeing August conditions because of drought, because of weather, and this is a moment where Oregonians have to come together to defend our communities.”
She said state agencies are deploying all the resources available to protect people and property. But she urged residents to do everything they can to keep fire crews safe by preventing fires and heeding orders to evacuate.
“Right now it is up to all of us as Oregonians to support our firefighters and our first responders across the state, who are managing and dealing with this crisis,” Kotek said. “And by that I mean: Do your part as an individual. If you’re in an area where there is fire, be paying attention to the alerts, know your evacuation plan, know where you need to go.
“The sooner people can move to safety, the easier it is for the firefighters to do their job.”
The National Weather Service issued another red flag warning for Central Oregon, meaning fire crews should brace for more dry and windy conditions. Officials say the critically low humidity combined with strong winds and hot temperatures could increase and quickly spread wildfires in the area.
As of Friday afternoon, the fire had reached about 27,000 acres. The State of Oregon Fires Dashboard showed nearly 2,000 people were still under Level 3 “Go Now” evacuation orders for the Akawa Butte Fire.
Kotek also said that while crews work to contain blazes across the state, this fire season is far from over.
“We have a long summer yet ahead of us,” she said.
Rita MacDonald, a 35-year Sisters resident, arrived at the press conference to learn if her home was in an evacuation zone.
She has spent the past two days gathering her personal items and livestock, preparing herself in case she has to leave at a moment’s notice. She wore the exhaustion on her face.
“I started walking in circles in my house, trying to think of what I should pack,” MacDonald said. “I think it’s gotten to be just about every summer we have at least one major fire, and we all just sort of hold our breath, and hopefully it won’t happen.”
A thankful community
On Thursday night, hundreds of people filed into a high school auditorium in Sisters to hear from leaders at public agencies confronting the Akawa Butte Fire. Katie Roberts sat at a table just outside the door, finishing up a handmade poster. It read “Thank you heroes.”
Her house was under a Level 1 “Be Ready” evacuation order, meaning she was staying alert, but she didn’t need to leave her rural neighborhood right away. Given how unpredictable the fire was Wednesday, though, creating its own lightning storm and shooting flames over 200 feet in the air, Roberts said she already prepared everything to leave at a moment’s notice.
“I feel like my kids are saying I’m overreacting, but my mama bear side is saying, ‘I need to be on it,’” Roberts said.
Lightning started the Akawa Butte Fire one week ago, on July 16. Since then it’s burned at least two homes, officials said at the meeting. Nearly 5,000 homes were under Level 1, 2, or 3 evacuation order.
But crews were cautiously optimistic that the worst of this fire’s activity was behind them, while also warning residents to stay vigilant.
The blaze in Deschutes and Jefferson counties is just one of 70 fires currently burning in Central Oregon, while across the state, other fires have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres and blanketed Oregon in smoke.
“So far this year in the state, between all agencies, there’s been over a thousand fires and 500,000 acres burned,” said Aaron Whiteley, an incident commander for the Oregon Department of Forestry.
“That’s more than we had all of last year.”
But the Akawa Butte Fire has stood out, even to the pros.
“We don’t have the margin for error when we’re getting this close to town,” said Ben Duda, emergency manager for the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office.
Record low snowpack, high temperatures and extreme drought conditions have escalated a notably intense wildfire now threatening a town of nearly 4,000 residents that’s surrounded by rural homesteads and destination resorts.
“It was like armageddon stuff,” said Matt Howard, an incident commander for Oregon Department of Forestry Complex Incident Management Team 2.
This is his 40th year fighting wildfires, he said, but this fire still surprised him.
“The outflow of winds from that thunderstorm yesterday was pushing that fire in two different directions. It had two different heads on it,” Howard said. “That fire was headed into town.”
Still, the overall message from the leaders who spoke to the anxious auditorium at the high school was that they believe the worst is behind them, and that the work of more than 1,000 wildland firefighters this week will hold.
“We want to get you home as soon as we can,” Duda said, adding that it would take time to ensure the area was safe and lift evacuation orders.
As the agency leaders left the meeting to answer questions and talk with community members in the entryway, they were met with rows of handmade posters laid out on the floor for them.
Kristan Collins, a Sisters resident of 23 years, was standing over the posters taking pictures. She said she was evacuated on Wednesday during the lightning storm.
“It was truly chaos,” she said, adding that she came to the meeting to thank the people working to save her town.
She smiled with tears in her eyes and pointed to a colorful sign.
“It says ‘Truly grateful,’” she said. “That’s what this is.”
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
