Marion County – 06/25/21 3:00 PM
Salem, OR – Starting, Saturday, June 26, communities in the Willamette Valley are expected to see triple digit temperatures through Monday, June 28. Marion County urges residents to be prepared and to take needed precautions over the weekend.
Marion County has compiled several resources for community members to stay up-to-date on local information:
- Cooling Centers and other alerts: www.co.marion.or.us/Alerts
- Tips to stay cool and other health related information: http://heat.mchealthy.net
- Marion County call center: 503-391-7294. Open Saturday, June 26, through Monday, June 28, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day.
- Statewide information is available by calling 2-1-1 or visiting www.211info.org.
As we enter into the weekend Marion County Health & Human Services offers the following tips to stay cool:
- Drink more water than usual and don’t wait until you are thirsty.
- Take a cool shower or bath.
- Use air conditioning or a fan.
- Don’t use a fan to blow extremely hot air on yourself, use it to create cross-ventilation.
- Wear lightweight and loose clothing.
- Avoid using your stove or oven.
- Avoid going outside during the hottest part of the day (3 p.m. to 7 p.m.).
You can also help by looking in on family and friends:
- Check in on elderly and other vulnerable family and neighbors during warm weather – twice a day is best.
- Never leave a person, child, or pet in a hot car.
- Check regularly on how babies and toddlers, seniors, people taking mental health medications, and people with heart disease or high blood pressure are doing. See the symptoms of heat stroke and heat exhaustion below.
With the high temperatures and dry conditions, the Marion County Fire Defense Board has issued a countywide burn ban that began Friday, June 25, at 7:00 a.m. and is in effect until further notice.
The burn ban prohibits all of the following:
- Backyard or open burning (branches, yard debris, etc.).
- Agricultural burning (agricultural wastes, crops, field burning, etc.).
- Any other land clearing, slash, stump, waste, debris, or controlled burning.
The burn ban does not prohibit:
- Small outdoor cooking, warming, or recreational fires. These include portable or permanent fire pits, fire tables, and campfires, with a maximum fuel area of three feet in diameter and two feet in height in a safe location away from combustibles or vegetation and are fully extinguished after use.
- Barbeque grills, smokers and similar cooking appliances with clean, dry firewood, briquettes, wood chips, pellets, propane, natural gas, or similar fuels
Fire chiefs in Marion County encourage the public to use extreme caution with activities that could start a fire. It is everyone’s responsibility to prevent and be prepared for wildfires.
