⁍ The weather shift followed intermittently heavy showers on Friday.

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⁍ Firefighters can expect another 2 to 4 inches of rain in the next week.

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⁍ The unusually ferocious wildfires have claimed at least eight lives in Oregon and one in Washington state.

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– Firefighters in the Pacific Northwest are getting some help from the region’s cool, damp weather. A shift in the weather yesterday helped more than 9,000 personnel fight 29 wildfires in Washington and Oregon, including the Riverside Fire southeast of Portland, the US Forestry Service said. Firefighters can expect another 2 to 4 inches of rain in the next week for coastal Oregon and parts of the Cascade Mountains, said David Roth, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. ‘That’ll be over the next three to seven days, which should at least help,’ Roth told Reuters. ‘Something is better than nothing.’ But even after the rainfall west of the Cascade Mountains, the fire was still feeding on deep layers of long-dead vegetation that is abundant in the western wilderness, a fire report read. ‘Rain doesn’t do much to put out the fire unless we get a lot of it,’ Incident Commander Alan Sinclair said in a statement. ‘But the good news is the cool, damp weather is moderating fire activity and giving us a chance to make progress in containment efforts.’ The unusually ferocious wildfires have claimed at least eight lives in Oregon and one in Washington state, blackening 1.7 million acres since Labor Day and incinerating several small towns. Oregon emergency management officials have warned the death toll there could climb as search teams scour the ruins of thousands of homes engulfed in flames during chaotic evacuations early in the disaster. Thousands of evacuees, particularly in Oregon, have been forced into emergency shelters, mobile trailers, and hotel rooms.