Oregon Public Broadcasting

Six active wildfires continued to burn in Oregon Wednesday, fire officials say.

The only one burning significant acreage was the Jackies Butte fire southeast of Burns. Fire officials say lightning strikes last night started another fire near Grass Valley. It threatens an unoccupied building and is yet to be contained.

Mike Dubrasich is the executive director of the Western Institute for Study of the Environment. His organization tracks wildfires.

He says lightning started more than 1000 fires in California - Oregon has been much calmer.

Mike Dubrasich: “They've been mostly grass fires, not forest fires. They came on a lightning storm too. We got our own lightning storm about a week after California. It's early in our season, things are still fairly damp out there. And we didn't experience the kind of dry spring that California had this year.”

Residents of Big Sur, south of Monterey, have been forced to evacuate their homes because a fire there jumped the fire lines.

California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered National Guard soldiers to help battle the blazes.

Some Oregon firefighters have been sent to California to help as well.