Credit Courtesy of Northwest Interagency Coordinating Center
Washington Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz toured two of eastern Washington’s major wildfire sites today [Wednesday], where thousands of acres on Indian reservations have burned. They are two of more than a thousand fires reported this season in Washington, already an all-time record, she says.
Franz went to Wellpinit to learn about the Sherwood fire, which has burned about 1,100 acres on the Spokane Indian reservation. Then she drove to Inchelium to hear about the progress of a fire burning on the Colville Indian reservation.
“We’re not even through the end of July. What we’re seeing on the landscape, the fires that I’ve been visiting, we don’t usually see until late August, typically the peak of our fire season, she said.
SPR s Doug Nadvornick reports.
Fire crews in the Northwest are bracing for more winds Wednesday evening as they battle wildfires that are burning hundreds of thousands of acres of parched land.
The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center is tracking at least 15 major fires in Washington and Oregon. Others are burning in Idaho.
At several of those, fire bosses say they’ve had windows of calm weather that allowed crews to dig fire lines and stop flames from advancing. But the forecast calls for gusty winds to return in many areas. A Red Flag warning is in effect for most of eastern and central Washington.
SPR s Doug Nadvornick reports.
Federal wildfire officials say eight major fires are burning more than 220,000 acres in Washington and Oregon. That doesn’t count several other fires burning in Idaho.
The Northwest Interagency Coordinating Center says four of the region’s largest fires are in southern Oregon, including the largest, the Bootleg fire.
The rest are in Washington and spread out. Up north in the Cascades is the Cedar Creek complex of fires near Mazama, which have forced the closure of state Highway 20. The Burbank fire near Yakima is burning about 12,000 acres of grass. In the southeast corner, the Dry Gulch fire near Asotin has grown by about nine thousand acres to 55,000. It’s burning tall grass, brush and timber. Winds from the west have blown the smoke toward Lewiston and the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, where the air is considered unhealthy. And the Green Ridge fire is nearby. It’s actually two fires that have burned about 200 acres in steep terrain about 3