Oregon Public Broadcasting

Helicopters, with flag-draped coffins, carried out the badly-burned remains of seven Oregonians from remote California wilderness on Sunday.

This week, the remains will be transported back to southern Oregon.

The wildfires burning in northern California remain the only major incidents in the area.

Jeree Mills is a spokeswoman with the National Interagency Coordination Center for fires, in Portland.

Jeree Mills: “Right now in Oregon I am watching four large fires. For example, the Gnarls Fire that's burning up near the Mount Hood Wilderness, its burning in the area where they had the Mount Hood Complex a few years ago and if it gets into that, it'll really slow it down because a lot of the fuel has already been burned up.”

It's been a relatively slow wildfire season thus far. Compared to the last five years, we've seen just half as many wildfires this summer.

And only 69,000 acres have burned - the average over the past five years was 370,000 acres.