Hot shot firefighters on alert around the clock on areas' largest wildland fire

Aerial view of Pomas Fire. Photo courtesy U.S. Forest Service.

Slowly charring landscape in the Glacier Peaks Wilderness, many miles northwest of Entiat, the Pomas Fire is blackening downed timber and ground brush. 3,308 acres as of Thursday morning.

Several people attended a community meeting on the fire at the Entiat Fire Station Wednesday night.

"There's a lot of progress going on out there," said Deputy Incident Fire Commander Jason Loomis. "We just can not definitively say that we have x amount of containment without verifying it with boots on the ground. It's going to take some time for that containment to go up, but we're working hard to keep that fire where it is."

A Level One "Be Alert and Prepared" evacuation advisory was in place as of Thursday morning for the Holden Village area.

"It's unique up there, not really an easy drive-in place," said Sheriff's Sgt. Jason Reinfeld, Supervisor of Chelan County Emergency Management. "Right now there's anywhere from 250-300 people up there. We want to be sure they don't get trapped in there."

"Currently as we speak today, there's two hot shot crews that have been living up there," Operation Chief Seth Merritt said. "Food being brought into them and they've worked hose lines up both sides and they've been able to work the hot spots that were there. Being up there they've been able to identify a lot more that we hadn't seen and get line around those. That's given us a great bumper. It's buying us time, but it may not be the end all. Getting up into those avalanche shoots is going to be very difficult."