Excerpt from The 1961 Fire Season in the Pacific Northwest

The 1961 fire season was more severe than normal in east central Washington and northeast Oregon, slightly less severe than normal-in south-central Oregon, and near normal in western portions of Oregon and Washington. The season was slightly less severe than 1960, except in northeast Oregon where the 2 years were equally bad, and in western Washington where this year was worse than last. Notable were the record number of rainless days during the summer in western Washington, the large number of days with thunderstorms over the national forests east of the Cascades, and uncommonly hot temperatures through June and August (fig.

The 1961 season started early west of the Cascades with a prolonged period in January of dry and comparatively warm east winds. The fire season proper began in April and May with typical temperature and rainfall throughout the region, but changed abruptly in June to extraordinary high temperature and below-average rainfall. Spring fire-weather severity varied from below average in western Washington to near average around the rest of the region Summer, with higher than usual temperature in July, an exceedingly hot August, and typical insignificant amounts of rainfall, was generally more severe than usual, particularly in northeast Oregon. Summer fire weather was below average in severity in south-central Oregon. Fall slash burning conditions were generally quite favorable, with alternating periods of rain and dry weather in September and October. Though October was generally cool with the usual rainfall, fall fire weather was more severe than normal, except in south-central Oregon and western Washington where conditions were near average.

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