Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue and other Washington County firefighters remain deployed on the same wildfire that killed dozer operator Jason Ensign, whose death Gov. Tina Kotek will honor with a statewide flag-lowering Friday, Aug. 14.
Kotek issued the flag-lowering order Wednesday, Aug. 12, directing flags at Oregon public institutions to fly at half-staff from sunrise to sunset Friday.
Ensign, 47, of Klamath Falls, was a contractor with Green Diamond Resource Company. He was operating a Caterpillar D-6 dozer near the Yahwee Plateau on Aug. 6, constructing fire lines ahead of the Wrights Spring Fire in Klamath County, when a weather event caused unexpected and rapid fire growth that cut off his escape route to a safety zone, according to KOBI 5 and the Klamath County Sheriff's Office.
Crews learned around 4:30 p.m. that a dozer was missing. Sheriff's deputies and Oregon Department of Forestry personnel located the extensively damaged machine later that night. Ensign was inside the enclosed cab.
"Behind every helmet, every engine and every piece of heavy equipment is a person who went to work expecting to come home," Klamath County Sheriff Shane Mitchell said in an Aug. 8 statement.
A Washington County task force designated Task Force 56 departed Aug. 7 for the same fire, one day after Ensign was killed. The task force includes crews from TVF&R, Banks Fire District 13, Forest Grove Fire & Rescue, Cornelius Fire Department and Hillsboro, according to News in the Grove.
Banks Fire District 13 sent Brush Rig 14 with firefighters Andrew Cooper and Ryan Coffman. It was the district's sixth wildfire deployment of 2026. Forest Grove sent its heavy brush unit with two career personnel, and a TVF&R engine boss rounded out that crew. Cornelius sent Water Tender 8 with two members.
The task force can be deployed for up to two weeks under the Emergency Conflagration Act, which Kotek invoked for the Wrights Spring Fire on Aug. 8. It was the 12th time the governor used the act this year.
As we reported Aug. 5, a separate TVF&R crew had just returned from a seven-day deployment protecting homes in Harney County, underscoring the pace of the 2026 fire season for local agencies.
The Wrights Spring Fire ignited Aug. 5 in the Fremont-Winema National Forest. As of Aug. 10, it had burned 46,767 acres with no containment and 555 personnel assigned. Ensign's death was Oregon's first wildfire-related fatality since Logan Taylor, an Oregon Department of Forestry contractor killed in the Rum Creek Fire in 2022, according to The Oregonian. The 2026 season has claimed at least two lives statewide, according to the governor's office.
The Klamath County Sheriff's Office has issued Level 1 and Level 2 evacuation notices for the Sprague River community and surrounding areas.
