Wildfire season winds down
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year, 1 month AGO
The Delabarre fire, one of four in Olympic National Park, burns on Sept. 16. The fire covered 4,168 acres but has stopped spreading, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
COURTESY PHOTO/USFS
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | October 5, 2023 5:47 PM
MOSES LAKE — Most of the wildfires that flared up in Washington this summer are out, according to information from the National Interagency Fire Center.
Fire activity diminished last week in the Olympic National Park fires — Low Divide, Delabarre, Martin Lake and Eagle Point — due to precipitation and cool temperatures. Smoke production was observed in down and standing deadwood. Those four fires, combined with three other, much smaller ones, burned a total of 4,795 acres, according to the NIFC. They were listed as uncontained but further spread was expected to be minimal.
The Airplane Lake, Dome Peak, Blue Lake, Kindy Creek and Sourdough fires in the north Cascades have also stopped spreading, according to the NIFC. Between them they total 17,094 acres, and costs for all of them were estimated at $30,440,000.
The 30-fire Cowlitz Complex that cropped up in Gifford Pinchot National Forest on Aug. 25, was still 39% contained Thursday, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Western Washington Incident Management Team 3 left the site Sept. 30, turning the remaining work over to a small on-site team. Prescribed burns will begin this weekend in the eastern part of the forest near Mount Adams and will continue until Oct. 21.
Eleven more prescribed fires were burning in Okanogan, Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties Thursday, according to the NIFC, for a total of 2,660 acres.
Editor’s note: This will be the last regular fire report for this year’s fire season. We will continue to cover local fires as they occur. Despite cooling weather and reduced fire risk, we encourage our readers to be extremely vigilant in regard to fire safety.