Spokane Guard Battling Wildfire Fast Action Needed Against Wildfire, Washington’S Gov. Locke Stresses

As wildfires continue to rage and firefighting resources are strained across the West, Washington is calling out the troops.

Several National Guard members from Spokane were among the 530 Gov. Gary Locke called up Friday to help fight a 110,000-acre brush fire that has raced across parched sagebrush in southern Washington.

“We need to move quickly so we don’t have the multiple wildfires that states such as Montana and Idaho are facing,” the Democratic governor said.

Spokane’s 1-161 Infantry Battalion is contributing 170 National Guardsmen to the effort.

“We are trying to get them all in as fast as possible and get going,” Capt. Lester Lea said of preparations Saturday morning.

The Spokane contingent went to Yakima this month for training, Lea said. Half of these Spokane Guardsmen have firefighting experience, including fighting Spokane’s firestorm in 1991.

Both Montana and Idaho already have turned to the military for help. In Montana, a 500-member Army battalion from Kentucky arrived for wildfire duty Friday as the state moved toward its sixth week of catastrophic burning. High winds fanned two major wildfires in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley and prompted more evacuations Friday.

Temperatures into the 90s and 40 mph wind were expected in areas of Montana, where some of the 25 major fires are burning. The National Weather Service said the hot, breezy weather could continue through the weekend in Montana, Idaho and Washington, providing ideal conditions for new fires.

Several small fires also were burning in northeastern Oregon, the largest an 18,000-acre group of fires burning in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area near the Idaho border.

“We just don’t see a real end in sight,” said E. Lynn Burkett, spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho.

In Washington, fire crews were working Saturday on fire breaks along the east and northeast edges of the Mule Dry blaze to keep it from spreading closer to the towns of Mabton and Prosser, both about 3 miles from the flames. Approximately 500 National Guard personnel and 180 Department of Natural Resources personnel were due Saturday to join the 650 firefighters and support staff on site, said fire information officer Cynthia Reichelt. Six bulldozers, 16 engines and several helicopters also were at the scene.

“We’re using dozers to clear everything away … and trying to backburn where we can so if we do get high winds this afternoon we’ll be ready for it,” Reichelt said.

“We’re really getting ready for the worst, and hopefully the worst won’t happen,” she said.

The blaze is 26 miles long and 15 or 16 miles deep, Reichelt said.

“It’s mostly burning on the perimeters, but it’s covered quite a lot of terrain,” she said. “It’s quite a magnificent sight at night.”

The fire, named for a creek running through the million-acre Yakama Nation Reservation, has consumed 24 outbuildings on and off the reservation since it was sparked by lightning Wednesday evening.

Fifty homes scattered across the Horse Heaven Hills were voluntarily evacuated Thursday. The threat to those homes had lessened Friday night.

But crews worried that the fire could jump a ridge and reach lightly populated areas near the town of Mabton, said Reichelt, a U.S. Forest Service fire information officer. There was no estimate when the fire would be contained.

Gusts of up to 35 mph were forecast Saturday - compared with Friday’s 10-25 mph winds - with low humidity, she said.

“We could be looking at some really busy fire behavior,” Reichelt said.

By burning out brush and grass and using the area’s maze of farm-to-market roads as firebreaks, crews hope to prevent the fire from growing.

A second Washington fire - the 600-acre Long House 2 blaze in Klickitat County - was 100 percent contained Saturday, said Penelope Christopherson at the state Emergency Operations Center.

Locke said he turned to the National Guard for help on the Mule Dry fire because of a shortage of available firefighters throughout the West.

“This is a large, fast-moving fire that already has caused at least $1 million in damage,” Locke said. “More than 600 men and women have been fighting it since Wednesday, and now we need to give them help urgently.”

About 380 of the Guard members, including those from Spokane, received three days of firefighting training earlier this month and are expected to arrive on the fire lines before the end of the weekend. Another 150 Guard members will provide support services.

Also, a team of 180 state prison inmates were due to arrive on the fire lines Saturday.

The Mule Dry fire is southwest of the site of the 190,000-acre Hanford fire, which blackened half the nuclear reservation in late June.

Wind and tinder-dry conditions have worked against fire crews in arid southern Washington, where only about 7 inches of precipitation falls annually.

A statewide outdoor burning ban is in effect.

Many areas east of Washington’s Cascade Mountains have not received measurable rainfall for a month and a half.

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The Prosser fire is 26 miles long and 15 or 16 miles deep.