Weather Could Cause Trouble For Washington Fire Crews

Sixteen large wildfires are burning across central and eastern Washington, covering more than 920 square miles.

Fire information officer Jonathan Moor said Monday that crews were carried in on a Burlington Northern Santa Fe work train to create gaps in the vegetation from the tracks toward the fire through steep, dense terrain.

Four new wildfires sparked to life over the weekend, bringing the total acreage scorched this year in Washington and Oregon alone to just over 1 million acres (404,686 hectares), according to the national Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

It surged past last summer’s Carlton Complex fire, which claimed 256,108 acres, or nearly exactly 400 square miles.

“Air quality impacts ranging from unhealthy for sensitive groups to hazardous are likely to continue for much of the week in western and central Montana”, an advisory from the department said.

Officials said Monday the almost 1-squre mile blaze has been spreading northeast toward the transportation corridor for days, forcing a two-day closure last week of a main east-west route for passengers and cargo.

More large fires are torching other parts of the West, including California, where an unprecedented multiyear drought has dried out vegetation.

But more help has arrived in Washington state.

Fire crackled close to the place she calls home in Okanogan and smoke draped over the hills.

The smoke, however, is reaching an even bigger area. More than 200 homes have been destroyed, and more than 12,000 homes and thousands of other structures remain threatened.

The fires and evacuations have also forced the closure of several Women, Infant and Children (WIC) clinics and placed private water systems and septic systems on alert for power outages and fire damage.

Costs for the worldwide firefighters will be paid by the agency they’re assigned to, officials said, though no estimate was yet available.

Air quality, which has been dangerously bad, will also improve when the smoke cloud lifts, but firefighters won’t be able to take a breather. A fourth injured firefighter is being treated at a hospital in Seattle.

As of the latest record, more than 275,000 gallons have been showered all over the areas that were being grazed by the 16 fires that haunted Evergreen State, the state’s National Guard reported.

Last July’s Carleton Complex Fire burned 260 homes in Okanogan County.