Fires burn unchecked in the Columbia River Gorge on Monday.
Fires burn unchecked in the Columbia River Gorge on Monday. whereinthegorge.com

The Gorge Is On Fire: Lots of it. Overnight, winds continued to push the Eagle Creek fire west. There are fires near Crown Point, and encroaching on Multnomah Falls. I-84 is closed from Troutdale to just west of Hood River. The fire has crossed the Columbia to Washington, overtaking some 4,800 acres without anything to stop it. We're watching a national treasure go up in flames, and it is enraging.

As of this writing, KOIN has a hazy live feed from a helicopter.


Here are the latest evacuation notifications as the fire creeps toward Corbett. A shelter has been set up at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham for evacuees.




And why all this? Apparently because some teens were lighting off fireworks on the Eagle Creek trail. Again, enraging.

The air is acrid and wildfire ash is covering everything, but just in case it's not clear to you, Portland's air quality is classified unhealthy, which means "everyone may begin to experience health effects members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects."

The poor air quality, combined with expected temps in the high 90s, have Portland Public Schools shutting down early today.

BTW: LA is on fire, too. So is the rest of Western Oregon.

More Terrible Stuff: Trump is about to kill DACA. AG Jeff Sessions is expected to announce this morning that the administration will repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, effecting something like 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children. The plan is apparently to give congress six months to introduce legislation that would take the program's place in some shape or form.

There's a rally to oppose the move today at 5 pm outside the federal building downtown.

The strained state of affairs around immigration policy caused lots of folks in my news feeds to object strongly to the Oregonian's Sunday front page, which splashed a story about the deportations of a now accused rapist—and how his case fit in with state and county policies— with the headline "Sanctuary For Whom?"

For instance:


And by the way: You've heard about Hurricane Irma, right? The category 5 storm that's currently barreling toward Florida? This summer is quickly devolving into trash.

Screen_Shot_2017-09-05_at_7.07.41_AM.png