New blazes burn in Eastern Washington
Published 9:00 pm Monday, August 13, 2001
Associated Press
For the third day in a row, lightning sparked new wildfires Monday in Eastern Washington, forcing the state’s firefighting agencies to scatter their resources among multiple blazes.
"There are a lot of fires out there," said Charles Gulick, a spokesman in the state Department of Natural Resources’ northeast region in Colville. "It’s a mess."
The 400-acre Indian Dan Canyon Fire was burning in hilly sagebrush-and-timber country, five miles northwest of Brewster, and the 300-acre Gamble’s Mill Fire was burning just north of that, he said.
Thunderstorm cells crossed Eastern Washington on Monday afternoon, with lots of dry lightning strikes and gusty winds.
The DNR’s northeast region alone was tracking 70 fires, Gulick said.
Additional fires were reported on the Colville Indian Reservation, but no one at the firefighting office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs was immediately available to answer questions.
At least 41 fires were burning in the Wenatchee National Forest and another 20 in the Okanogan National Forest.
The Spruce Springs Fire in the Wenatchee National Forest’s Naches Ranger District had burned about 100 acres, four miles south of Rimrock Lake, but was relatively inactive Monday, said Robin DeMario, a Forest Service spokeswoman.
About 200 firefighters were in camp, she said.
A passing storm cell started a new fire Monday in the Ahtanum area, about three miles east of Spruce Springs, on state land, she said.
Farther north, several small fires, totaling 70 to 100 acres in the Icicle Ridge area, were being managed as one fire complex in the Leavenworth Ranger District, DeMario said.
The terrain is steep and rocky, and the fires were burning in a mosaic pattern and staying small, she said. About 50 people have been dispatched to the fire complex, she said.
In the Chelan Ranger District, firefighters with portable pumps and hoses were set up at the base of Rex Creek to protect some cabins from the Rex Fire, which was burning on the north shore of Lake Chelan, about 40 miles up the lake, DeMario said.
Most of the fires in the Okanogan National Forest were less than a quarter-acre in size, she said.
In the North Cascades, lightning or high winds from a thunderstorm cell may have blown a utility transformer, starting two small fires on private property about a mile north of Winthrop on Sunday. One building was burned, but Forest Service spokesman Ken Frederick was unable to say whether it was a home or an outbuilding.
Six homes in the area were temporarily evacuated.
"It was a serious concern," he said.
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