Oregon
Difficult fire season strains relationship between forestry department and Eastern Oregon landowners
Firefighting equipment hangs above a “Volunteers Needed” sign at Payton Station, headquarters of the Baker Rural Fire Protection District, Baker City, Ore., August 1, 2024. Baker Rural Fire Protection District is a volunteer department that sent crews to the Durkee, Thompson, and other local fires throughout July.
Anna Lueck / OPB
At a Thursday board retreat in Pendleton, officials from the Oregon Department of Forestry went over the grim statistics that have come to define modern fire seasons: In 2024, fires burned more than 1.93 million acres in the state, 18 times the amount compared to 2023.
Department staff also highlighted the ripple effects that go beyond acres burned and firefighting costs.
Joe Hessel, an ODF incident commander and former district forester for northeast Oregon, said the department normally relies on landowners like Eastern Oregon ranchers and farmers to share knowledge of their land with firefighters. While that relationship persisted, Hessel said there was a growing sense of dissatisfaction among some landowners over how the department responded to the fires this year.
Landowners peppered officials throughout the season with questions about the number of personnel the department sent, the equipment they used, the length of time they spent fighting the fire and their overall approach, Hessel said.
“Landowners didn’t want to hear about all the other fires, the lack of resources, or anything else that could be viewed as an excuse for what they viewed as a less than full fledged effort to deal with an emergency on their property,” he said.
Lee Wright looks over his cattle, sheltering from the Durkee fire in his feedlot, to the burned hills that once made up his grazing lands near Vale, Ore., July 31, 2024. Wright lost nearly twenty thousand acres of grazing land to the fire– meaning he will likely have to lease other pastures for his herd, or sell those he can’t afford to feed.
Anna Lueck / OPB
The rising fire protection rates landowners are paying to the state add to the tension.
“It’s sort of a perfect storm for frustration to boil over,” he said. “I believe higher than desired rates have created tension between ODF and landowners at a level that didn’t used to be there, and that the partnership we relied on for years is under significant stress.”
Hessel said the main obstacle is that the system is overloaded. The size and intensity of the fires this year didn’t match the resources the department and its partners had on the ground.
Eastern Oregon ranchers were hit hard by fires almost immediately. The Durkee Fire, which burned nearly 300,000 acres in Baker and Malheur counties – destroyed wide swaths of rangeland. Local farmers said they considered selling some of the cattle that weren’t killed by the fire because they might not be able to feed them anymore.
While the department will continue to fight fires each summer, the board didn’t have any easy answers for a long-term solution.
Board member Brenda McComb, a retired forest science professor, asked if officials should revisit the state’s fire suppression laws to focus more on fires threatening human life and property rather than trying to put out every wildfire.
“My question wasn’t looking for the financial fix, but rather the financial balance,” she said. “Can we spend less money with the military approach to putting out fires and divert that money to post-fire recovery?”
It was a suggestion that wasn’t fully embraced by other board members and department staffers. State forester Cal Mukumoto referenced a cattle pasture the board visited the day before.
“That’s someone’s life. That’s someone’s livestock. That’s what we’re talking about here. People live in and are part of this community and have generations here that have this culture,” he said. “We’re told to go out there, suppress those fires, and that’s what we’ll do.”
Mukumoto said firefighting policy would have to be left to the Legislature. At least one legislator was listening: state Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, who was in the audience. Last session, Golden co-sponsored a bill that proposed a ballot measure that would have taxed timber companies to help pay for wildfire costs. It died after receiving a committee hearing.
The Oregon Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at July 6, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from July 6 drawing
17-44-63-66-67, Powerball: 04, Power Play: 2
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Pick 4 numbers from July 6 drawing
1PM: 8-8-0-7
4PM: 4-2-9-2
7PM: 8-2-5-5
10PM: 7-7-2-2
Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Win for Life numbers from July 6 drawing
18-28-41-70
Check Win for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Megabucks numbers from July 6 drawing
14-19-20-21-25-38
Check Megabucks payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Oregon Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 7:59 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 7:59 p.m. on Tuesday and Friday.
- Pick 4: 1 p.m., 4 p.m., 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. daily.
- Win for Life: 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Megabucks: 7:29 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by an Oregon editor. You can send feedback using this form.
If you headed to the lake early last week, you missed the best fireworks. Dan Lanning and his staff put on a cup of coffee and closed like the Wolf of Wall Street. Minus the cocaine, probably.
All jokes aside, and believe me, these are jokes, the recruiting this staff is doing is not a joke. From June 28 to July 3, a span of 6 days Oregon added four new commitments and all were four stars or better. If you weren’t paying attention, Oregon landed 12 commits in the months of June and what we’ve had in July so far.
The recruiting class has surged from the teens to No. 9 to start last week to No. 3 overall by Friday afternoon. Only Texas A&M and Notre Dame have better recruiting classes according to Rivals. Oregon has the best class in the Big Ten conference.
The 24 commits sit at an average rating of 90.76 according to Rivals. Additionally 16 of the 24 commits are ranked four-stars or better and that includes the Ducks having a pair of 5-Star commitments. Oregon has 11 defensive commits, 11 offensive commits and 2 listed as athletes.
Up next is a commitment from four-star linebacker Brayton Feister set for Saturday, July 11. I don’t believe that addition will move Oregon up in the rankings but will strengthen their current position.
With five-star wide receiver Xavier Sabb committing, Oregon now has a commitment from 17 different states. Should Feister from Ohio pick the Ducks on Saturday, that would give Oregon an 18th state. The national reach of this program is as good as any school in the country.
Last year Oregon finished with the No. 4 ranked class in the nation. The 2025 class also finished at No. 4 nationally.
The early signing period for the 2027 class begins on December 4 and ends on December 6. The transfer portal window begins on January 2.
Oregon kicks off its 2026 season opener at home on September 5 vs Boise State.
Oregon
Former corrections officer sentenced in major Oregon poaching case spanning multiple counties
UMATILLA COUNTY, Ore. (KTVZ) — A yearslong investigation by the Oregon State Police (OSP), in addition to the Fish and Wildlife Division, has resulted in significant penalties for an Umatilla man accused of illegally killing wildlife across Oregon, in what prosecutors describe as one of the most damaging serial poaching cases tied to a single individual.
Christopher George Matson, 48, was sentenced in two separate cases in June following an investigation that began in 2024, when authorities received information he was unlawfully taking big game animals. Matson is a former Oregon Department of Corrections officer.
In February 2025, investigators served a search warrant and seized multiple big game animals and firearms as evidence. In total, 67 criminal charges were referred for prosecution, spanning multiple counties and including allegations such as unlawful take and possession of black bear with the aid of bait, unlawful take of buck deer and antlerless elk, and hunting during prohibited hours. Additional charges included falsely applying for tags, loaning or borrowing big game tags, and unlawful possession of silencers and a short-barreled rifle.
The case was prosecuted by the Oregon Department of Justice’s Wildlife Anti-Poaching Resource Prosecutor.
On June 18, 2026, Matson pleaded guilty in Grant County Circuit Court to seven counts, including unlawful take of buck deer and black bear. He was sentenced to 18 months of probation, a lifetime hunting license revocation, 300 hours of community service, forfeiture of firearms and seized property, and a $52,500 fine payable to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Less than two weeks later, on June 29, Matson pleaded guilty in Umatilla County Circuit Court to additional charges, including unlawful possession of a short-barreled rifle, unlawful possession of a silencer, unlawful possession of multiple wildlife, and unlawful take of mule deer. In that case, he was sentenced to 24 months of probation, a lifetime hunting ban, 300 hours of community service to run concurrently, forfeiture of property, and a $62,000 fine.
Combined, the penalties include probation, a lifetime revocation of hunting privileges, 300 hours of community service and more than $114,000 in fines.
“This is another example of serial poaching which rises to the level of felony conduct based solely on the repeated poaching conduct and impact of one individual on Oregon’s game mammals,” said Jay Hall, the Oregon Department of Justice’s Wildlife Anti-Poaching Resource Prosecutor. “The conduct across the several counties amounts to one of the highest damage amounts done to Oregon wildlife by any singular actor.”
Oregon State Police credited the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for assisting with interviews and evidence collection, along with multiple witnesses who came forward during the investigation.
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