Firefighters make gains on Chelan County wild land fires

Aerial assault on Lower Sugarloaf Fire, Sept. 27. Photo courtesy: Ryan Higgins.

Weather conditions are expected to aid firefighters on two large wild land fires burning in Chelan County.

"After the fires made their runs (from windy weather late last week), we had good air and we could fly the helicopters and air tankers," Incident Commanders reported at a community meeting Friday night. "That's helped us get a foothold on containing those spot fires, and so we're making good progress."

Review the latest information on evacuation levels on the Chelan County Emergency Management Facebook page.

The biggest threat has been on the Labor Mountain Fire burning on both sides of highway 97 on the Chelan-Kittitas county line where, "In the roadless areas, steep rocky, very inaccessible, we can't use aviation resources effectively. We are making plans to find containment line locations that are both safe for firefighters and have a high likelihood of success, to contain the fire's spread east of the highway 97 corridor."

"We're expected to see an uptick in smoke concentrations and air quality impacts across the area," said Jeremy Ash, managing air resources and air quality. "we might get some respite during the day, but in the overnight hours, in the morning hours, we can expect to see some higher smoke concentrations.

"There's a chance for thunderstorms on Tuesday and Wednesday, so that lightening potentially poses a safety issue for the crews as well as the possibility of new fires," Fire weather expert Kip Vanderwater shared.

Two new incident command teams and more firefighters are expected on the fires by mid week.

In flight photo of Sugarloaf Fire. Photo courtesy: Kae Burns.