100 firefighters on scene as blaze west of Medical Lake grows to over 200 acres

A fire burning west of Medical Lake Sunday afternoon grew quickly to over 200 acres in size.

Fire crews were rapidly able to establish a perimeter around the blaze, however, and had the situation largely in hand as of 6:15 p.m., said Department of Natural Resources Fire Information Officer Guy Giffords.

Called the Fancher Double Fire, it started some time around 3:30 p.m. near Fancher Road in the wheat stubble and timber-lined hills west of the city. Cameron Stewart, dispatch operations coordinator at Northeast Washington Inter-agency Communication Center, said the fire is active but no structures are currently threatened.

Multiple fire crews responded to the blaze, including firefighters from Spokane County Fire District 3, and two Fire Boss airplanes that have scooped and dumped water from the lake, which has “slowed the rate of spread,” Stewart said.

A helicopter, bulldozer and other hand crews also responded at about 5:30 p.m., according to the Washington Department of Natural Resources twitter account.

100 firefighters were on-scene Sunday evening, Giffords said.

“We’ll be on it all night, but we’ve got a good handle on it,” he said. “Forward progression has been significantly slowed.”

This story is developing and will be updated.