3.2M people in Columbia Basin face extreme, critical fire conditions

from the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center

Dangerous fire weather conditions are expected in the Columbia Basin Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. Forecasts say 2.17 million persons face extremely critical fire conditions, with another 1.03 million in critical fire conditions.

As a potent upper-level trough moves onshore across the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, a dry cold front will progress rapidly east-southeastward through the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, increasing southwesterly surface winds ahead of the approaching dry cold front, with declining relative humidities.

This combination of meteorological and fuel conditions will foster widespread elevated to critical fire weather concerns across an expansive area of the eastern Pacific Northwest, northern Rockies, and northern Great Basin, with extremely critical conditions forecast for portions of the Columbia Basin in north-central Oregon and central / southeastern Washington Saturday afternoon and evening.

Cities at extremely critical risk include Bend, Spokane, Missoula, Idaho Falls, and Caldwell, Idaho. Cities facing critical risk include Yakima, Kennewick, Richland, Pasco, and Walla Walla, Washington.

Surface winds have already increased to 15-25 mph with gusts near 30 mph across portions of the Columbia Basin and north-central Oregon, several hours ahead of the expected afternoon maximum.

While relative humidity is expected to increase later Saturday night, a longer duration of elevated wind conditions (15+ mph) is also forecast, potentially lasting 12-14 hours for some locations.

The cold front is expected to move through the region by late Saturday morning/early afternoon, with an accompanying wind shift to broadly westerly (and perhaps to west-northwesterly later in the evening).

Concurrently, stronger mid-level flow will foster a favorable environment for very strong, dry downslope flow in the lee of the Cascades, with sustained westerly winds increasing to 30+ mph (strongest in the lee of the immediate foothills and in favored terrain/gap flow areas), gusts increasing to 40-50+ mph, and relative humidity falling to 5% to 15%.

Fire weather concerns should continue through the night into Sunday morning due to lingering breezy conditions coupled with poor overnight relative humidity recoveries.

Widespread wildfire smoke continues across eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and central and western Idaho.