Fire season still in full swing

Earlier sunsets and cool mornings might mean summer’s almost gone, but fire season is not.

Fires on Spokane’s West Plains, the Colville Indian Reservation and along Interstate 90 west of Vantage had firefighters busy Sunday.

A fire that started in the median of I-90 around 2:30 p.m. was whipped into a wildfire by high winds and spread along nearly three miles of the eastbound lanes.

“It’s very gusty,” said Steve Calvert, an employee at the Texaco station in Vantage, adding that the sagebrush and grass went up quickly and the fire jumped the freeway as it moved south.

The Washington State Patrol closed the eastbound lanes just east of Ellensburg because of fire and low visibility from the smoke. Firefighters from Kittitas County Fire District 4, the Department of Natural Resources and military aircraft battled the blaze.

Westbound lanes, which are well separated from the eastbound lanes at that point, reportedly remained open. Eastbound traffic was rerouted onto the Old Vantage Highway.

On Spokane County’s West Plains north of Airway Heights and Fairchild Air Force Base, more than 50 firefighters, along with trucks, bulldozers and aircraft from the state Department of Natural Resources, knocked down a fire that spread to about five acres and threatened a house before it was contained.

Fire District 10 Chief Nick Scharff said the fire was reported about 1 p.m., shortly after residents heard noises that could have been gunfire, fireworks, or a power line arcing. Erratic winds pushed it several different ways through the brush on hillsides.

Ken Piller said he heard a noise, then smelled smoke and walked up over the hill behind his house on North Gordon Road to see the flames. His neighbor Gordon Hester said he was heading home from Medical Lake when he saw smoke rising from the area near where his house is.

It wasn’t Hester’s home, but Piller’s that was threatened, and Hester’s wife had already called 911. Within about 10 minutes, crews were on the scene and had set up trucks to protect the houses in the area.

District 10 got rapid assistance from Airway Heights, Fairchild Air Force Base, District 5 and DNR, Scharff said, and got a line around the fire quickly. By 3 p.m. they were releasing some crews to return to their stations, but other crews were expected to be mopping up through the night.

In north-central Washington, the Manila Creek fire on the Colville Reservation grew slightly, to about 26,560 acres. But Brian Miller, a spokesman at the command post, said the fire was about 80 percent contained and full containment was expected sometime today. That could change if an approaching cold front brought stronger than predicted winds, Miller said.

“That could test the fire lines,” he said.

On Sunday, winds averaged around 10 mph, with gusts up to about 15 mph, he said.

The fire was being fought by an estimated 841 personnel, six helicopters, 37 engines and nine bulldozers.

Dry weather is likely to extend fire season into October or November, said Scharff.

Until that happens, Piller had some advice for Washington residents.

As he looked at firefighters spraying the scorched earth behind his home, he touched the waist high grass and said: “Keep anything that burns away from the grass. It’s just like gasoline.”