U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell

The head of the U.S. Forest Service is set to visit Central Oregon today, as part of a swing through the Northwest to meet with firefighters.

Tom Tidwell, chief of the agency that oversees the Deschutes and Ochoco national forests, plans to go to the Redmond Air Center, which is home to an air tanker base and a smokejumper crew, and Prineville, said Jean Nelson-Dean, a spokeswoman for the Deschutes National Forest. During the trip he’ll have a chance to talk with firefighters and see the effects of recent wildfires.

“(He’s) just getting a sense of what is going on out here in the West,” she said.

The visits are not open to the public and Tidwell, as well as Tom Harbour, Forest Service director of fire and aviation, are set to travel to Washington state to meet with firefighters on Sunday, said Mike Ferris, spokesman with the agency in Boise. Tidwell and Harbour both work at Forest Service headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Since earlier this month nearly 20 large wildfires sparked by lightning in Oregon and Washington have blackened more than 900,000 acres — over 1,400 square miles — in the two states.

The fires destroyed a half-dozen homes in Oregon and 300 homes in Washington. The Central and Eastern Oregon wildfires have burned more than 615,000 acres, or more than 960 square miles.

Tidwell traveled west last year to visit the Rim Fire, Ferris said, which burned 257,314 acres or 402 square miles in and near Yosemite National Park in California.

President Barack Obama appointed Tidwell as head of the Forest Service in 2009. The 17th chief of the Forest Service, Tidwell is a Washington State University graduate with a degree in forest and range management. He’s been with the Forest Service for more than 30 years.

Today’s visit will be his first to Central Oregon since taking the post, Nelson-Dean said.