Local crews to fight Chelan blaze
Published 7:26 pm Wednesday, July 28, 2010
SULTAN — About a dozen Snohomish County firefighters left for Eastern Washington early Wednesday to battle a 700-acre wildfire.
The fire was burning grass, brush and timber just north of Chelan in Union Valley.
The blaze was threatening more than 120 homes, deputy state Fire Marshal Ken Dellsite said. Officials evacuated about 80 people by Wednesday afternoon.
“The growth potential and the structure loss potential is very great,” said Getchell Fire Department Chief Travis Hots, who is the county’s mobilization resource coordinator.
The fire was started by lightning, Dellsite said.
More than 400 firefighters were struggling to contain the blaze, said Bob Redling, a spokesman with the state Department of Natural Resources.
The call for help came about 1 a.m., Hots said. Less than two hours later, 13 firefighters boarded their fire trucks and headed east.
Crews were deployed from Getchell, Lake Stevens, Gold Bar, North County Fire, Arlington Heights and Monroe fire departments.
Local teams safely arrived in Chelan later that morning and received their assignments, Hots said.
The hot, dry weather sparked several large wildfires across the state. Fire danger was expected to remain extremely high today and Friday.
On Wednesday evening, a stubborn fire burned on the island in the middle of Lake Ballinger, Snohomish County Fire District 1 spokeswoman Leslie Hynes said.
A helicopter was dumping water on the island, sending plumes of smoke south toward Edmonds and Shoreline. “The island is a peat bog and fires travel underground in the peat, making them difficult to predict and extinguish completely,” she said.
That was the third time on Wednesday that firefighters returned to the island, 300 by 100 feet in size.
“In the past they had fires out there that smoldered on and off for weeks,” Hynes said.
Earlier that afternoon, crews in Snohomish put out a brush fire at the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery.
Wildfires like the one in Chelan County burn for days, and Hots said he doesn’t expect local crews to come back home any time soon.
Snohomish County firefighters typically get mobilization calls a handful of times each summer, Hots said. The calls go out when a local fire department has exhausted its resources.
The county can send up to 30 firefighters and 15 pieces of equipment at any given time to help fight fires elsewhere in the state, Hots said. Crews are rotated after a week.
Firefighters who go on mobilization calls must train to qualify for fighting wildfires. “Our resources are extremely well trained,” he said.
Across the state, DNR crews responded to 40 new wildfire calls on Wednesday, spokesman Bob Redling said. The blaze in Chelan County was the largest.
Wildfires about 5 acres in size also burned in Okanogan and Stevens counties.
Another 5-acre fire in Yakima county was growing on Wednesday afternoon.
A 47-acre wildfire raging in the Mineral Hill area in Okanogan County was 70 percent contained by Wednesday afternoon.
Katya Yefimova:
425-339-3452,
kyefimova@heraldnet.com.
