The smoke on the US East Coast was reminiscent of last fall when multiple large fires burning in Oregon in the state's worst fire season in recent memory choked the local skies with smoke.
Burning through the equivalent of 130,000 soccer fields, the Bootleg Fire, some 250 miles south of Portland, is the largest active blaze in the US.
Portland has been the scene of unrest for months, with civil rights, anarchist and anti-fascist protesters clashing with police and occasionally with right-wing militias and Trump supporters.
The ballot measures in various states covered a wide array of issues, from election laws, to abortion rights, to workers' rights and decriminalising drugs.
Oregonians voted in favour of measures to legalise the personal possession of hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, LSD, oxycodone and others.
Oregon State Police are investigating the shooting and any deputies involved will be placed on administrative leave during the inquiry.
Search and rescue teams, with dogs in tow, were deployed across the blackened ruins of southern Oregon towns as smoldering wildfires ravaged US Pacific Coast states after causing widespread destruction.
Oregon’s emergency management director has said officials were preparing for a possible “mass fatality event” if many more bodies turn up in the ash.
The state's emergency management director, Andrew Phelps, has said officials are “preparing for a mass fatality event” and that thousands of structures have been destroyed.
Oregon is the hardest-hit state in the western US, where nearly 100 extreme wildfires are burning, even as forecasters say some weather relief is in sight.
Uncontrolled wildfires rage across US West, incinerating town of Malden and threatening communities in Oregon and California, powered by high winds and unprecedented heat.
Activists and Oregon officials have urged people in Portland to re-centre the focus on Black Lives Matter after the Trump administration agreed to reduce the presence of federal agents.
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