Ruggs Fire — Morrow County, Oregon
Active fire · data from NIFC, refreshed 4 minutes ago
The Ruggs Fire is burning in Morrow County, Oregon, 53 mi (85 km) NNE of Mitchell. NIFC's most recent report puts it at 1,300 acres. It was first reported on August 31, 2026, and the cause is recorded as undetermined.
- Size
- 1,300 acres
- Discovered
- August 31, 2026
- Cause
- Undetermined
- Personnel assigned
- 0
- Protecting agency
- C&L
Show this fire on the live map
What the containment figure means
NIFC has not published a containment figure for this fire yet. That usually means it is new, or too small to have a formal line reported around it.
How far it is from town
Straight-line distance and the direction you would look from each town to reach the fire's reported point of origin. A large fire is tens of miles across, so its nearest edge is closer than this — these are distances to the origin point NIFC publishes, not to the fire's edge.
| Town | Distance | Direction | County |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mitchell | 53 mi (85 km) | NNE | Wheeler |
| Madras | 82 mi (133 km) | ENE | Jefferson |
| Warm Springs | 84 mi (135 km) | ENE | Jefferson |
| Prineville | 87 mi (139 km) | NE | Crook |
| Redmond | 99 mi (160 km) | NE | Deschutes |
Mapped perimeter
The mapped perimeter encloses 1,311 acres, as of the mapping run on Sep 1, 2026, 6:39 AM PDT. Perimeter acreage and reported acreage routinely disagree, and the mapped figure can go down when a fire is flown or walked properly for the first time — that is a correction to the map, not the fire shrinking.
How this fire grew
Every figure below is a value FireWatcher observed on NIFC's feed at that time, kept because NIFC does not publish a history. Daily change can be negative: reported acreage is revised downward when a fire is mapped properly, and complexes reassign acreage between member fires.
| Date | Acres | Change | Contained | Personnel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | 650 | — | — | — |
| 2026-09-01 | 1,300 | +650 | — | — |
| 2026-09-03 | 1,300 | 0 | — | — |
| 2026-09-04 | 1,300 | 0 | — | — |
Satellite heat
No VIIRS thermal detections have landed inside this fire's footprint in the last 24 hours. That is normal for a fire that is mostly out, and also normal for one that is burning under a smoke layer or between satellite overpasses — the polar orbiters pass roughly four times a day. Source: NASA FIRMS VIIRS (NOAA-20, 375 m).
Fire weather and where the smoke is going
Read at Prineville Airport, 87 mi (139 km) from this fire — the one point FireWatcher polls the National Weather Service for. It is regional context, not this fire's own weather, and over that distance it can be wrong.
70°F, 28% relative humidity, wind 0 mph from the N gusting 12 mph.
The transport wind — the layer that actually carries a smoke column — is 7 mph out of the W, so smoke from fires in this area is being pushed toward the east, with a mixing height around 500 ft — the lower that number, the more smoke stays down where people breathe it.
Cameras near this fire
ALERTWest fire cameras
- Jordan Butte
16 mi (26 km) away, fire lies SSE of the camera · currently panned elsewhere
ODOT TripCheck road cameras
- OR207 at OHV Park
16 mi (25 km) away, fire lies N of the camera
- OR207 at OHV Park
16 mi (25 km) away, fire lies N of the camera
- US395 at Cape Horn
34 mi (54 km) away, fire lies W of the camera
Live views are on the map. ALERTWest units are mountaintop pan-tilt-zoom cameras and they move, so "panned toward the fire" is where the camera was pointed at the last data refresh, not a promise of what is in frame. TripCheck cameras are fixed and look at the road, not at the fire.
Where to get official information
FireWatcher does not carry evacuation levels and is not an official source. Evacuation levels for this fire are issued by the Morrow County Sheriff's Office, not by any of the feeds on this page. If you are deciding whether to leave, use these:
- OR-Alert — the state's emergency alert system. Sign up before you need it.
- Central Oregon Fire Info — the interagency public information site for fires in this region.
- InciWeb — official incident pages for larger fires, published by the managing agency.
- NWS Pendleton and NWS Portland — red flag warnings and fire weather watches.
Other fires burning nearby
- Crosswhite Fire
342,923 acres · 93% contained · Wheeler County
- Second Flat Fire
105,854 acres · 99% contained · Harney County
- Grasshopper Fire
93,999 acres · 96% contained · Wasco County
- Porcupine Ridge Fire
79,200 acres · 100% contained · Gilliam County
- Shingle Fire
73,183 acres · 95% contained · Wheeler County
- Brewer Fire
70,821 acres · 100% contained · Jefferson County
- Hoag Fire
50,224 acres · 100% contained · Gilliam County
- Henry Fire
29,844 acres · 97% contained · Crook County
Where these numbers come from
Incident name, acreage, containment, cause, personnel and complexity are read straight from the National Interagency Fire Center's WFIGS interagency feed (CC-BY 3.0), which FireWatcher polls every five minutes; this page was built from the poll at Sep 11, 2026, 12:29 PM PDT (4 minutes ago). Perimeters come from the same source. Satellite heat is NASA FIRMS VIIRS. Weather is the National Weather Service. Aircraft positions are ADS-B via adsb.lol (ODbL 1.0). Camera positions are ALERTWest / University of Oregon and ODOT TripCheck. Distances are computed here from the published point of origin.
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