Chelan County wildfires eclipse size of Pioneer Fire

Increased fire activity in the Mission Creek area of the Labor Mountain Fire, Oct. 4, has firefighters performing tactical firing operation to bring active fire to primary containment lines. Firefighters say this operation may produce increased smoke in the area.

Closing in on a combined 80,000 acres scorched, the Sugarloaf Fire and Labor Mountain Fire continued to plod along with the fires growing by about one thousand acres over this past weekend.

"A lot of the smoke came from interior pockets that we're burning out," reported Labor Mountain Operations Chief Tim Cawley on Saturday. Cawley said there was some fire growth, but no significant growth of the fire's perimeter.

Firefighters are going direct into Shasta Creek and into Peshastin Creek and along Highway 97, "The roads group is going to continue to fall trees," Chief Cawley added. "We're coordinating with DOT (Washington State Department of Transportation) on some potential for what needs to be done in order to get that to where it can be opened."

On the Sugarloaf Fire, the focus of firefighters is in Swakane Canyon.

"The fire has been slowly progressing to the east," Incident command Public Information Officer Andy Lyon reported on Sunday. "Our focus is to create a fire line at a place where we think we can effectively stop the fire should it progress all of the way to that fire line."

A community meeting, addressing both fires, will be held at Cashmere Middle School beginning at 7:00 p.m. Monday, Oct. 6. citizens are encouraged to attend in person or on Facebook at Labor Mountain Fire 2025 or Lower Sugarloaf Fire 2025 .