Colville Reservation Grass Fires Snuffed

Fri., Aug. 27, 1999

Firefighters are mopping up two large grass and sagebrush fires Thursday on the Colville Indian Reservation.

No one was injured and no buildings were damaged in either the 2,000-acre Timms Brothers Ranch fire about five miles northwest of Nespelem or the 650-acre Soap Lake Mountain fire eight miles southeast of Okanogan.

Crews were battling the Timms fire, which started about 7 a.m. Wednesday, when a woman reported that the muffler on her car had sparked the second fire.

Ike Cawston, fire management officer for Colville Confederated Tribes, said the woman’s prompt report “saved us a lot of headache,” but “we had to do a quick shuffle.”

He said 100 federal and tribal firefighters and two airplanes fought the fires. They were hampered by winds that gusted up to 30 mph.

Cawston said the cause of the Timms fire had not been determined, but an electrical transformer is suspected.

He said more fires are expected as vegetation continues to dry out in the late-summer heat. “Our fire season now is pretty much just heating up.”

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