Almost 90,000 acres burning in Washington State

NW Cable News ^ | 07/31/2003 | KING Staff and Wire Reports

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Lightning created by the smoke from one Washington state wilderness blaze sparked a small fire that burned near the Canadian border Thursday.

The spot fire near Bald Mountain in the Pasayten Wilderness was burning about three miles south of the border, and about two miles north of the main Farewell Creek fire, spokeswoman Christy Covington said Thursday.

It was believed to be only about an acre, but fire officials were monitoring it as well as two similar spot fires south of the main blaze.

Meanwhile, the Farewell Creek fire, which had blackened 73,640 acres since lightning started it June 29, continued to burn slowly up the Spanish Creek drainage toward Canada, she said.

Conditions near Ashnola Pass, on one part of the fire's northern flank, had improved so much that fire managers considered sending crews in on Friday to try to stem the fire's progress, spokesman Roland Emetaz said.

"We may have some options to tie it off there. We thought we might be able to until the fire had a run two days ago," he said. "Now again, it looks like we might be able to put a fork in it there."

The main fire's 30,000 foot plume of smoke mixed with colder air aloft to create the lightning that caused the spot fires, he said.

High temperatures, low relative humidity and unstable air patterns created by the fire were causing extreme fire conditions.

There were 1,314 people working the fire Thursday. It had cost nearly $26.7 million to fight.

In Western Washington, a 20-acre wildfire near Morton in Lewis County threatened three homes and was attacked with fire retardant released from a fixed-wing airplane and water bombing from a helicopter.

No evacuations were ordered overnight, and inmate firefighting crews dug trails around about 60 percent of the burn Thursday, Jeannie Abbott of the state Department of Natural Resources said.

State and local fire crews contained the fire earlier than originally predicted, and all lanes of SR 508 have been reopened. WSDOT has posted "Caution" signs in the vicinity while fire crews are still working the fire.

Conditions are so dry in Eastern Washington that officials in the Colville National Forest considered closing the forest to all public access.

Officials measure the relative dryness of a forest by its potential to burn quickly, called the Energy Release Component. On Thursday, the fire rating index for the Colville National Forest climbed to a new high, fire staff officer Al Garr said.

"Historically the Colville National Forest has an average ERC value of 50 in early August. Today, the observed ERC value was 90," Garr said.

Those levels are significantly higher than in 1994, when the Copper Butte Fire burned 10,580 acres and in 2001, when the Mt. Leona Fire burned 5,911 acres, he said.

Forest officials said they would evaluate the need to elevate forest restrictions on both commercial and recreational uses if conditions continue to worsen, Garr said.

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