Chelan County wildfire jumps lines; 120 homes evacuated

By The Associated Press

DON SEABROOK / THE WENATCHEE WORLD A wildfire burns near the Dryden Community Church last week. The Fischer fire had grown beyond 2,100 acres and was most likely no longer 30 percent contained, fire officials said late yesterday.

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DRYDEN, Chelan County — The Chelan County Sheriff's Office ordered a new round of evacuations last night after a wildfire near this Central Washington town jumped some fire lines and burned across a road.

About 120 homes in the Eagle Creek area north of Leavenworth were evacuated on emergency notice yesterday afternoon because of concerns of shifting winds and an approaching lightning storm, said Patrick Lonergan of the Sheriff's Office.

Blaze spreads

The Fischer fire had grown beyond 2,100 acres and was most likely no longer 30 percent contained, according to fire information officer Art Tasker.

"It'll be sometime tomorrow before we have an acreage figure," Tasker said last night.

The fire was moving to the northeast away from homes late yesterday, but Tasker said crews were concerned that thunderstorms in the forecast could blow the fire back toward the homes.

A day earlier about 30 homes near the Fischer fire remained evacuated, with residents of another 40 to 50 homes put on notice they might have to leave.

More than 850 firefighters were assigned to the blaze, which was burning on private, state and national forestland. It was believed to be human-caused.

Near Naches, northwest of Yakima, the Mud Lake fire was fully contained at 4,000 acres last night, according to a woman who answered the fire-information phone but would not give her name.
 
Weather predictions for the weekend included high temperatures and low humidity, with the possible addition of dry thunderstorms and lightning.

"It all adds up to high potential for new starts from the lightning and erratic fire behavior from existing fires," said Carol Tocco of the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland.

Chelan fires monitored

Near Lake Chelan in north-central Washington, 550 firefighters continued to monitor a complex of three fires. The Pot Peak-Sisi Ridge complex remained at 46,970 acres and was 85 percent contained.

Lightning caused all three fires in the complex — the Pot Peak fire on June 26 and the Deep Harbor and Sisi Ridge fires on July 19. The Deep Harbor fire burned a dock and picnic shelter at a campground.

In far north-central Washington, about 140 firefighters were fighting the lightning-caused Mebee fire about a half-mile north of the North Cascades Highway. The fire was estimated at 234 acres. The highway remained open.

About 70 firefighters were assigned to the Rattlesnake Peak fire about 40 miles west of Yakima.

The lightning-caused fire has burned about 590 acres in an area that had not burned for 60 years.