Rain brings some fire relief
Tuesday’s sneak preview of autumn rain sapped strength from wildfires across the region and raised hopes that many closed hunting and hiking trails could be open again by the weekend.
Although the rain showers were spotty – the gauge at Spokane International Airport had less than a tenth of an inch by late Tuesday afternoon – the slow-moving storm dumped more than an inch of rain on portions of the bone-dry forest in North Idaho.
“This is the type of rain that we need,” said Mike Denney, incident commander for several large fires in Idaho’s Kootenai and Shoshone counties. “This one is probably going to do a lot of good.”
In Eastern Washington, the heaviest rains fell near Colfax, Moses Lake and Pullman. Snow was reported to have fallen in some of the north-central Washington high country being burned by the Tripod Complex of fires.
Steady downpours were also reported from Coeur d’Alene east to Idaho’s border with Montana.
More rain can be expected across the region through Friday, said Mike Fries, with the National Weather Service office in Spokane. “It’s going to be a parade of systems coming through here, all with chances of rain.”
The weather should clear up a bit by the weekend, Fries added.
Veteran firefighters, including Denney, say it’s too early to declare an end to the season’s smoke and fire, but the recent moisture has taken the edge off what’s proven to be a tense summer. Helicopters and air tankers stationed in Coeur d’Alene had been flying dozens of missions in recent weeks in hopes of preventing backcountry blazes from blowing up and sending embers closer to communities.
Although about 10,000 acres have burned in North Idaho this year – compared with only 46 acres last year – no homes were lost and no firefighters were injured. Large fires continue to smolder northwest of Upper Priest Lake and in the Bitterroot Divide’s Ulm Peak and Revett Lake areas.
Fires burned into the legendary ancient cedar groves northwest of Priest Lake, but the massive trees survived, said Matt Butler, with the U.S. Forest Service office in Priest Lake. The fire stayed out of the canopy and on the ground, burning a mosaic pattern through the underbrush.
Crews set up sprinklers and gas-powered pumps along two miles of the Upper Priest River to stop the advancing fire, Butler said.
In Eastern Washington, apart from the Tripod Complex of fires, a cluster of fires near Dayton continue to burn. The fires were listed at 80 percent contained Tuesday, after having burned 109,000 acres of forest and 28 structures.
Hundreds of firefighters across the region are now being sent home. Local crews will watch the smoldering embers to ensure they are not fanned to life. Much work also needs to be done to protect from erosion the bulldozer lines and roads carved into the burned areas, said Steve Harris, fire prevention coordinator for the Washington Department of Natural Resource’s northeast region.
It might look sodden outside, but Harris and others warned that fall breezes can quickly dry out dead grass and brush. In October 1991, flames driven by high winds burned 114 homes in the Spokane area.
“All we need to have is a few warm days, a little bit of wind and it will be dry enough to burn again,” Harris said. “We need another good week of this rain.”
Burning bans remain in place across portions of the region, but some restrictions are being lifted. Chain saws are again permitted in most of northeast Washington.
“We’ve got a lot of woodcutters looking to put some firewood away, including me,” Harris said.