In Molalla and other western towns, fear, uncertainty and disinformation gripped residents as hundreds of thousands in the state evacuate
Hundreds of thousands of people in Oregon were ordered to leave their homes on Thursday as wildfires encroached on their properties. The evacuations clogged highways, emptied entire towns and sparked confusion in a state that hasn’t grappled with wildfires of this size before.
Large-scale evacuations in the state began within the metropolitan area of Portland, the state’s largest city. Clackamas county, home to some 420,000 people in the metro’s south, was already under varying levels of fire alert when officials on Thursday afternoon told residents of the city of Molalla to leave.
From early afternoon, bumper-to-bumper traffic streamed north on state
route 213 from Molalla towards Oregon City. The highway’s northbound lanes
were clogged with RVs, trailers, trucks and smaller vehicles carrying tool boxes, luggage, trail bikes and horses.
The caravan was just one part of a half-million strong evacuation in a
state confronted by the worst fire conditions in recent history, and,
according to the governor, Kate Brown, the possibility of the worst
fatalities and property damage on record.
