PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Drivers on Interstate 5 in northwest Oregon jumped into action during the weekend’s record-breaking heatwave when they noticed a fire burning on the side of the road.
Morgan Woodford said she was stuck in traffic near The Enchanted Forest Sunday when she saw the fire on a nearby hill.
She grabbed a water bottle and jumped out of her car to pour the liquid on the flames. When it wasn’t enough, she started asking everyone else stuck in traffic for help.
“I turned to traffic on I-5 and it was basically stopped, so I shook my water bottle and after a few cars, one by one people threw water bottles and another car pulled over and there was like five cars pulled over at that time and a lady jumped out and she had a whole case of water and she just started throwing water bottles at us and we just grabbed them and dumped them on the fire,” Woodford said as she described the incident.
Woodford said one driver brought out a fire extinguisher and that also helped put the flames out. Together, the drivers were able to keep the flames from spreading any further.
Sunday, the high temperature reached 113 degrees in Salem.
Many Oregonians are still trying to recover from the deadly fire season that blanketed much of the western U.S. in smoke last year.
In 2020, wildfires in Oregon killed at least nine people, destroyed thousands of homes and burned roughly 1.2 million acres, according to the state’s office of emergency management.
