Washington Fires Burn Over 400K Acres

Kale Casey, the public information officer on the Chelan Complex, said he’s concerned about the town of Manson – south of hotspots and in the direction of the expected wind shift. He said since Friday the fire has grown 100 square miles. The governor’s office said more than 100 homes have so far been destroyed and thousands remain under threat.

Officials were anxious that high winds and possible thunderstorms expected Friday in western Montana could exacerbate a wildfire approaching a town near Glacier National Park. At least 10 blazes were burning in north-central Washington’s Okanogan County.

Caroline West felt all the anxieties of going to battle, but she and about 200 other soldiers are set to be deployed this weekend to wage a different kind of deadly fight – that of fighting Washington state’s wildfires.

One of three firefighters killed while battling a wildfire in Twisp, Washington had Michigan roots. Only one civilian death has been reported.

Meanwhile, a second of the four firefighters injured in a wildfire near Twisp on Wednesday has been transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, the Northwest’s major burn center.

The man is an employee of the state Department of Natural Resources, agency spokesman Bob Redling said.

“The firefighters were engaged in initial attack operations and were involved in a vehicle accident when it is believed that the fire overtook the vehicle”, said a statement from Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. His name was not released. Rogers said the four firefighters who were injured, one critically, were among those who had to escape on foot.

The winds made for a historically bad fire week. They belonged to specialized crews that immediately assess fire scenes and report back to commanders.

When helicopters could safely fly, they sometimes found the buckets of water they dumped were blown off target from the hot spots.

The state’s biggest fire is the Okanogan Complex, burning from the Methow Valley to Omak.

Firefighters should get a break in the weather Saturday.

The fire is still burning out of control, but Bernard said it isn’t threatening to cross into Canada anytime soon. Still, while working in cooperation with ground crews, the aircraft crews saved a lot of structure.

“We are a brotherhood,”Keiken said”.

“We can say we know structures have been lost, but we have no count”, Isaacson said. That’s what we do.

The call came hours after a similar orders were issued for Tonasket, a community of 1,000 people, and its surrounding area, about 60 miles northeast from where the firefighters were killed.

The United States has a long-standing history of cooperation with both Australia and New Zealand. It means it has run out of fuel to burn in that area, either because it has hit a man-made fire line, a drop from airplanes of fire retardant, a road or a lake.

The Chelan Complex Fire stands at 86,412 acres as of Saturday morning. Officials do not have an accurate count of how many homes have been destroyed by the fires. After better mapping it was also reduced and is about 45,929 acres.

The fire danger is high in the northern area of Colorado because of gusty winds, low humidity and dry vegetation.