WINTHROP – Fire crews made progress against a pair of wildfires that have consumed 75,770 acres in north-central Washington’s remote Chewuch Valley.
The Tripod and Spur Peak fires were 20 percent contained, about double the amount from Wednesday, firefighters said.
They grew by only about 1,000 acres Wednesday night and have burned some 117 square miles of national forest land northeast of Winthrop.
No homes were in imminent danger of burning, although people in the Winthrop area were asked to be on the alert in case conditions change, said fire spokesman Randy Shepard of the U.S. Forest Service .
The state Department of Health has closed beaches to the harvest of all species of shellfish in King County from Three Tree Point in Burien south to the Pierce County line, King County health officials said Thursday.
Marine biotoxins that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning have been detected at concentrations above the safe level in shellfish samples collected from beaches south of Three Tree Point.
The closure includes clams, oysters, mussels, scallops and other species of shellfish, but crab is not included. Vashon Island remained closed to shellfish harvesting.
The surgery was done, the groom woke up from the anesthetic, and an hour later he was saying his marriage vows.
Jared Darr and Amanda McCadden, students at Eastern Washington University in nearby Cheney, were married on schedule, if not as they had planned, Wednesday evening in a gray-carpeted conference room at Deaconness Medical Center, hours after a car crash that shattered the groom’s leg.
They said they had not kissed during their six-month engagement.
“I just want to kiss her so bad, and there’s no way I’m going to put it off,” Darr said, lying pale and on painkillers shortly before the ceremony.
Darr, 21, and McCadden, 23, had just picked up an archway for their wedding reception when their car T-boned another car at a four-way intersection about 10 a.m. Wednesday shortly after the groom, sitting in the passenger seat, raised his foot to put on a sock.
The airbag sent his leg through the windshield, he said.
With about 150 friends and relatives planning to attend, some from as far as Wisconsin and Minnesota, the couple decided to move their wedding to the hospital and send videotape of the ceremony to be shown at the party.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez on Thursday declared commercial salmon fishing a failure off Oregon and California this year, based on sharp harvest cutbacks imposed to protect struggling returns to the Klamath River.
The formal declaration under federal fisheries law, the first since 1992 to come before the end of the fishing season, makes it possible for members of Congress from the two states to move forward on seeking up to $80 million in aid.
Police detonated a pipe bomb that was found under a car in the Salem Hospital parking garage Thursday, and two other explosive devices were discovered later in the day.
A woman discovered the first bomb when she returned to her car just before noon and spotted a wire on her side mirror. When she pulled at the wire, a pipe bomb rolled out from underneath, said Lt. William Kohlmeyer of the Salem Police Department.
The Salem Police bomb squad destroyed the device about 2 p.m.
A supermarket manager discovered the second bomb in a parking lot, about 30 yards from the store. The Oregon State Police bomb squad detonated that one.
Salem Police Lt. Debbie Baker said a passing motorist found a third device in southeast Salem, and it was detonated Thursday night. All three devices were similar in design, made of pipe with wires attached, police said.
Associated Press
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