Just before American news reporters could excitingly begin covering the total solar eclipse from Oregon on Monday morning, they had to acknowledge the wildfire smoke caught by their cameras. “Wildfire Threatening the View” was one brief TV headline leading into the eclipse’s coverage.

Authorities on Tuesday designated a wildfire in southwestern Oregon as the top firefighting priority nationwide, a spokesman for the Incident Fire Management system said. The estimated containment date is October, according to officials.

The Chetco Bar Fire has now reached 70,000 acres, more than doubling since earlier today. The Sheriff’s Office has begun level 3 evacuation notices to all residents from the intersection of Carpenterville and Hwy 101 north to the Pistol River and east from the ocean.

Employers planning to host solar eclipse viewing parties should be aware of employee safety and workers compensation concerns. On Aug. 21, a total solar eclipse will take place and will be visible from cities including Portland, Oregon; Denver; Kansas City, Missouri; Nashville, Tennessee; Atlanta; and Charlotte, North Carolina.

A truck carrying about 7,500 pounds of live eels overturned on an Oregon highway Thursday afternoon. Police said the truck driver failed to stop and when he slammed on the breaks, the containers full of eels flew off the truck.

A large house fire caused significant damage to a neighboring car dealership in Milwaukie Tuesday morning. Clackamas firefighters were called to the scene in the early morning hours near McLoughlin Boulevard and Holly Avenue. The structure was reportedly vacant and bordered the family-owned Volstice Auto car dealership.

More than 8,000 firefighters across the West battled dozens of wildfires Thursday that forced thousands of local residents to pack up families, pets and personal treasures to flee the advancing blazes.

A series of wildfires is blazing across the Southwest as the chance of rain remains low amid a deadly heatwave. Eighteen large fires are burning in the region, including six in Arizona, three in Utah, three in California, three in New Mexico, two in Nevada and a large one in Oregon.

Legalizing recreational marijuana use in Colorado, Oregon and Washington has resulted in collision claim frequencies that are about 3 percent higher overall than would have been expected without legalization, a new Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) analysis shows.

At 11 a.m. Thursday, Mollie Hogan and Chris Veatch signed their last papers and picked up the key for their new home near Pilot Butte. Less than 24 hours later, high winds toppled a towering ponderosa pine, sending it crashing through the kitchen and living room.

Four people died in a small plane crash in a field off Peoria Road north of Harrisburg on Friday, the Linn County Sheriff’s Office said. The crash happened around 11:02 a.m., the sheriff’s office said.

On Friday, the meteorology community was riding a major high as stunningly high-definition images came in from the nation’s newest and much-anticipated earth observation satellite. The high came crashing down that evening, though, as the first hints of significant cuts to the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began to emerge.

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times: You don’t want your vehicle to catch on fire. For that reason, Mercedes-Benz is recalling more than 354,000 vehicles.

People sparked most US wildfires in recent decades, causing longer fire seasons and increasing the amount of scorched earth, according to a new study published Monday. Researchers found that humans caused 84 percent -- or four out of five -- of the total 1.5 million wildfires studied between 1992 and 2012.



In addition, human actions tripled the length of the fire season during those two decades and were responsible for 44 percent of the total acreage burned, researchers reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

United Technologies Corp’s (UTX.N) Carrier unit expanded a recall of some air conditioners and heat pumps as their power cord plugs can overheat, posing a fire risk, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday.