How dry is it out there? Consider this: a recreational vehicle with a flat tire pulled off Highway 12 just east of Naches Wednesday afternoon. Within minutes, dry grass on the road’s shoulder was ablaze from the heat of the vehicle (possibly from a bare tire rim running over asphalt for a few hundred yards, but a hot exhaust also could have ignited the tinder-dry grasses).
Fire crews from DNR, six local fire districts and the U.S. Forest Service were quickly dispatched to attack the fire along with planes dropping retardant and helicopters dropping water. Still, the blaze jumped Highway 12, closing it for two hours. The flames then jumped the Tieton River, briefly endangering 10 homes.
Most of the 150 acres blackened by the fire were in the state’s Oak Creek Wildlife Area, threatening prime elk habitat, costly elk fencing, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s elk feeding station.
On Thursday, more than 120 firefighters and a dozen fire engines helped contain the blaze by 6 p.m.
That’s how dry it is out there.
Many DNR firefighters working the Oak Creek Fire were dispatched from the nearby Forrest Fire that blackened more than 250 acres in the Ahtanum State Forest.
It’s shaping up to be a dry summer on both sides of the Cascades. DNR urges everyone to pay attention to fire dangers when traveling to — or even through — Washington’s wildlands.
