Wildfires just closed a national monument, a slice of the PCT, and a run of Eastern Sierra trailheads — here’s what’s actually shut down right now
Three separate fires are rewriting travel plans across the West Coast this week, and not in the vague “smoky skies” way you might expect. This time it’s specific: a national monument with locked gates, a named list of trailheads under an actual closure order, and campfire bans stacked across two Washington national forests.
None of this touches the whole West Coast — most of Oregon, Washington, and California are running completely normal right now. But if your trip crosses any of these specific spots, here’s what’s actually happening, straight from official sources.
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Oregon: a national monument goes dark
The Rowe Creek Complex started from lightning near the tiny town of Fossil on July 15 and has since burned past 208,000 acres, with containment sitting around 31 percent as of this week. In response, the National Park Service has closed the Clarno and Painted Hills units of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument — no visiting the striped hills or the fossil beds until further notice.
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BLM has also shut down all of its land along both banks of the John Day River, from Service Creek down to the Columbia. Evacuation notices are active in parts of Wheeler and Wasco counties. If a Painted Hills stop or a John Day float trip was on your itinerary, it’s off the table for now — the rest of Eastern Oregon’s high desert sits outside the closure lines, but conditions here are changing fast enough that it’s worth a same-day check before you commit to a route.
Washington: three fires, two forests under fire bans
Washington’s fire season picked up fast this week. The Little Giant Fire near Lake Wenatchee has burned nearly 18,000 acres with 0 percent containment as of the latest report, and the Kaiser Canyon Fire on the Colville Reservation has topped 124,000 acres. A smaller fire, the Ptarmigan, is burning in Okanogan National Forest.
Neither fire has closed a specific trailhead as of this week, but the restrictions have tightened around them: Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest moved to a full campfire ban on July 23, and Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest bumped up to Stage 2, which adds smoking restrictions on top of the fire ban. If your trip runs through either forest, plan on a camp stove instead of a fire ring, and expect smoke depending on which way the wind’s blowing that day.
California: a closure order and a piece of the PCT
The Rock Fire has burned more than 10,000 acres in Inyo County and forced the Forest Service into a specific closure order: Sawmill Pass, Red Lake, Taboose Pass, and Birch Lake trailheads are all off-limits through the end of the year. That’s the stretch of the Eastern Sierra near Independence and Big Pine — not the Mammoth Lakes or June Lake side further north, which is a different part of the same range entirely and isn’t part of this closure.
Angeles National Forest raised its fire danger rating to “Very High” on July 24, and a stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail through the Williamson Rock area is under a temporary closure tied to that. Shasta-Trinity and Modoc national forests have also rolled out new fire restrictions this month, so if any leg of your California trip touches national forest land, it’s worth a five-minute check before you leave.
What to actually do with this
Fire season on the West Coast moves fast, and today’s closure list won’t be next week’s. The smartest move is checking the specific forest or park’s official alerts page the morning you leave, not the week before you go. Got a trip already booked into one of these zones? Worth building in a backup destination now instead of finding out at the trailhead.
Trip tips: grab a rental car to get out here, lock in your hotel before the good rooms are gone, or skip both and book a camper van instead.
Rules and fees change — always confirm current requirements before you go.
