When was your trip to Klamath Lake? There have been some fires burning near Crater Lake since July. The early fall rains have really damped down the forest fires to the north, I thought Southern Oregon got some rain too. The Eagle Creek Fire (in the Columbia River Gorge) got within 12 miles of us and we had ash fall here like snow. The air looked like that for close to a month and that's the worst I've seen in the Northwest in the 30 years I've lived here.
The Eagle Creek Fire was started by a Russian immigrant kid playing with fireworks. My SO's law partner's wife is Russian and knows the community, she said the community is treating him like "boys will be boys". Most of the rest of the people around here have some rather creative ideas about what should be done with him.
In acres burned the fire season in the Northwest was only average this year, but many fires were close to populated areas so there was a lot more impact.
The continental divide actually does divide the weather. The Pacific weather pattern has a clear wet and dry season and the climates of the west are all considered Mediterranean, though the Northwest is more like northern Italy or the Balkans. Everywhere east of the Rockies summers get some rain and things don't dry out like they do in the west.
It stops raining for a stretch ranging from 6-7 months in California down to about 3-4 months in the north everything dries out and fire is always a high risk in late summer. The young mountains in the west make the terrain very difficult for fire fighting too.
