Carpenter Road fire burns 10,000 acres after jumping containment line

A fire in Stevens County burned almost 10,000 acres overnight after jumping a containment line on its north edge along the Springdale-Hunters Road. The Carpenter Road fire has now burned just under 56,000 acres, said Randall Rishe, a spokesman with the incident management team. With gusts of wind up to 20 MPH are projected Friday, firefighters are concerned the blaze could threaten homes. Crews are digging a new containment line and structure fire crews are in place around homes. “The terrain is very very difficult. With the winds that we had yesterday and the terrain as it is, the difficulty has gone up,” he said. No new evacuations have been ordered by the Stevens County Emergency Operations Center, which maintains a current map here. An air inversion is expected to lift around noon Friday, Rishe said. That will help clear smoke, allowing air operations to help fight the fire. But it will also give the fire more oxygen to burn. Active fire is still burning on the south and east sides of the fire, Rishe said. The fire in those areas has remained within containment lines.