CHENEY – Fire crews were working Sunday to contain an 111-acre fire that had threatened 10 structures in Eastern Washington.
The Gateway Lane Fire was about 50 percent contained Sunday evening. Steve Harris of the Department of Natural Resources said mop-up was taking longer than expected, but crews hoped to contain the fire five miles northwest of Spangle sometime today.
Harris said the fire was started Saturday afternoon by a spark caused by repairs on a piece of construction equipment.
“We need to remind folks that things are drying out and we need to be extra careful now,” he said. “It’s fire season.”
Three of the 150 firefighters battling the fire have suffered minor injuries and two were taken to a hospital as a precaution, Harris said. Two had minor burns and the third man, who had suffered a shortness of breath after a bee sting, was found to have walking pneumonia.
A vintage British fighter jet exploded after crashing into a densely populated neighborhood in Hillsboro during an air show Sunday afternoon, destroying a home and killing the pilot.
The plane crashed toward the end of the two-day Oregon International Airshow, where the plane had been on display, but did not perform, said Steve Callaway, an air show board member.
Fire officials said no residents or others on the ground were hurt.
The jet was taking off from the Hillsboro Airport to return to California when it went down, said Connie King, a spokeswoman for the Hillsboro Fire Department.
The jet slammed into a house at 4:28 p.m. and destroyed it, she said. No one was home at the time, she said. The pilot’s name was not immediately released.
Another house with people inside sustained “significant damage,” but no one was hurt, King said. The attic exterior of a third house was damaged, and there was fire damage in the yard of another, she said.
A firefighter was treated at a local hospital for heat exhaustion and released.
Three Oregon men are alive after spending 61/2 hours clinging to an ice chest in 65-degree Pacific Ocean water after their boat sank about 45 miles off the coast, the Coast Guard said.
Only one of the men was wearing a life jacket when a Coast Guard helicopter lifted them from the water on Friday evening.
The search for the men, who were fishing for tuna, began around 1:30 p.m. when the Coast Guard received a call for help. Four helicopters and a search plane flew over the ocean for hours and two rescue boats from the Yaquina Bay station in Newport responded to the call. The men were located about 8 p.m.
Coast Guard spokesman Shawn Eggert said Sunday that the incident was still under investigation.
Eggert said the boat carrying the men was a 25- to 28-foot pleasure craft owned by Bob Templin, 53. Templin told The Oregonian newspaper on Saturday that he had been treated and released from Good Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport. He was unwilling to speak about the incident, but said his two friends were in the hospital.
Associated Press
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