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Crews continue to battle Western Pines fire northeast of Davenport

{span}A large wildfire is burning near Carp Lake & Western Pines Road. It has grown from 2,100 acres on Wednesday to about 3,800 on Thursday. This map shows the progress of the fire as of Wednesday night. {/span} (Courtesy of Lincoln County Sheriff's Office)
By Thomas Clouse tomc@spokesman.com(509) 459-5495

The Western Pines fire burning northeast of Davenport, Washington, has nearly doubled in size as crews continue to battle the blaze as it approaches the Spokane River.

Listed at about 2,100 acres on Wednesday, the fire had grown to about 4,100 acres as of Thursday evening, according to an update posted to the fire information website InciWeb.

It’s believed to have started about 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday near Carp Lake and Western Pines roads. It spread rapidly east, driven by winds on Wednesday and is expected to spread south.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office has several evacuation orders in place for the area.

On Wednesday, crews “engaged in initial attack of the fire with retardant drops from aerial resources and structure protection crews engaging in operations,” according to a DNR news release. “Local and adjacent fire district resources engaged in initial attack and began to construct direct, and indirect, fire line(s) in coordination with dozers.”

Some 78 crews worked through the night Wednesday to try to get containment on the fire, according to the release.

“Aerial resources began to slow the fire and ground crews looked for safe areas to begin more fire line construction, but rugged terrain limited access to some areas,” the statement reads.

As of 7 a.m. Thursday, the Northeast Washington Interagency Type 3 incident management team assumed command of the efforts to control the fire.

Fire crews will be broken into divisions and strike teams from the state mobilization will help relieve local resources, according to the release.

“Today crews will progress off the work completed (Wednesday) and through the night,” the release states. “Ground crews will focus on connecting fire lines around the perimeter of the fire and aerial resources will continue to knock down the forward progression of the fire.”

The weather conditions, especially high winds, have calmed, which should help efforts to control the fire.

The high in the area was expected to reach 83 degrees Thursday. Winds were expected to be out of the west from 5 to 10 mph and to shift to the northwest in the afternoon. Thursday night, winds were expected to continue out of the northeast from 3 to 7 mph.