September 2026 VOLUME 34 | ISSUE 9 The monthly newspaper of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Pendleton, Oregon
CUJ
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CONFEDERATED UMATILLA JOURNAL
Behind the fire line
Firefighters with R. Franco Restoration make their way down to the containment line Aug. 11 in the North Fork Umatilla Wilderness near Tollgate. Yasser Marte / The CUJ
Crews continue battle to contain Hagen Fire TOLLGATE — By midafternoon, smoke hung over the North Fork Umatilla Wilderness. A group of wildland firefighters moved along the hillside in the sweltering heat, working to keep the flames from spreading. Among those working the line on Aug. 11 were members of Northern Rockies Team 6 and R. Franco Restoration. In heat and smoke, they worked through rugged terrain with a clear mission: contain the fire. Crews are battling the Hagen Fire, which has burned more than 60,000 acres and is 50% contained. The fire line has spread across a 12-mile stretch through Umatilla and Union counties. It is one of the largest fires to hit Eastern Oregon. In the forest, Monica Thomas, a Division Mike supervisor with Northern Rockies Team 6, pulled a large map from her truck and spread it across the side of her
Monica Thomas, Division Mike supervisor with Northern Rockies Team 6 Incident Management, looks at a map to survey the Hagen Fire line and new hotspots detected by drones Aug. 11 in the North Fork Umatilla Wilderness near Tollgate.
“The crews on the ground are working hard and giving everything they have each day. The work has come with personal sacrifices.” — Monica Thomas, Division Mike supervisor with Northern Rockies Team 6
vehicle. Beside her stood Klye Spears, the task force leader for Division Mike with Northern Rockies Team 6. Together, they both surveyed the red fire line stretched across the map. “All the red is the fire edge,” Spears said, while pointing to the map. “These are all the spots that we picked up. The fire was hung up down here, but we finally got a hot, dry day. We had some wind on it and it finally wanted to run out of the drainage up the North Fork Umatilla. That’s where we picked up all these spots.” Jarid Gibson, 35, of Montana, a
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YASSER MARTE The CUJ
Yasser Marte / The CUJ
division supervisor with Northern Rockies Team 6, said the fire had made a strong push up the North Fork of the Umatilla River two days earlier. Crews have since held the fire near Highway 204 and are working to contain it near Coyote Ridge. “So far we’ve been able to kind of hold it along the 204,” Gibson said. “We’re also trying to hold it near the Coyote Ridge, as it comes up into more favorable terrain for the
firefighters. There is a lot of smoke in the air, but I think we’re still sitting pretty good.” Overall, Thomas described the crew’s effort as “incredible,” noting that firefighters were working in heavy smoke, hiking steep terrain with heavy packs. She added that communication among the teams has also been essential to containing the fire line.
Get to know this year’s Happy Canyon Princesses PAGE B1
See FIRE LINE, Page A3
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