CHELAN – Two wildfires were threatening vacation homes near Lake Cushman and Lake Chelan on Saturday, with hundreds of people waiting for possible evacuation orders, fire officials said.
The Flick Creek fire on the east shore of Lake Chelan near the north-central Washington community of Stehekin was under a “level 2” evacuation order, said Terry Knupp, spokeswoman for the Northern Rockies Incident Management Team. She said that means people have been told to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.
A new estimate of the fire’s perimeter, after an infrared flight, put it at over 2,000 acres or over 3 square miles, Knupp said. The fire was burning in the Wenatchee National Forest and the National Park Service’s Lake Chelan National Recreation Area.
Stehekin sits on the north end of Lake Chelan, accessible by boat, float plane, horse or on foot, which makes firefighting more complicated than usual, Knupp said.
She said the Northern Rockies Incident Management Team had limited firefighting resources available to battle the wildfire, with only about 15 firefighters on the ground and one helicopter in the air Saturday. Knupp said additional people and equipment have been ordered.
Firefighters and homeowners were concentrating their efforts on structure protection. Some people have left voluntarily and others were staying in Stehekin to remove brush and other burnable materials from around their homes, Knupp said.
The fire was believed have been caused by an illegal campfire.
Almost all visitor services in the Lake Chelan area remained open and smoke in tourist locations was minimal Saturday morning. The area closed to recreation was south of Stehekin on the east shore of the lake.
Meanwhile, the Bear Gulch Fire was burning on about 250 acres of steep, rugged terrain between Lake Cushman and the southwest face of Mount Rose in the Olympic National Forest.
Hundreds of homes are near but none was immediately threatened, said fire spokesman Sam Goldwater. He said most of the structures in the area were vacation homes and he had received many calls from Seattle residents concerning their properties on Lake Cushman.
The cause of the fire was under investigation, but officials suspected it was human caused. A helicopter was dropping water on the east and west flanks of the blaze Saturday to stop it from spreading. Boaters were asked to avoid the north end of Lake Cushman where the helicopter was operating.
The Staircase area of Olympic National Park was closed along the Staircase access road and a number of campgrounds, picnic areas and trails were closed inside nearby Olympic National Park and in the Olympic National Forest, Goldwater said.
In north-central Washington, the Tripod Fire covered an estimated 27 square miles, or about 17,500 acres of forest land, six miles northeast of Winthrop.
About 40 miles northeast of Entiat, the Tinpan fire had burned about five square miles of sub-alpine trees since it was started July 7 by lightning. Firefighters were trying to keep it form burning beyond the wilderness boundary.
The Spur Peak fire has burned nearly 8 square miles, or about 5,000 acres, about 16 miles northeast of Winthrop.
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