Weather plays pivotal role in wild land fire fight

Telemetry equipment being installed on ridgetop of Lower Sugarloaf Fire, Oct. 11.

The first snowfall of the season has arrived on the upper ridgetops of both the Lower Sugarloaf and Labor Mountains fires, continuing to slowly burn west of Entiat and southeast of Cashmere, respectively.

The Sugarloaf is almost extinguished. Fire landscape suppression repairs are already being made.

Wind along with the incoming fall weather has battered the damaged timber within the fire, an extra concern for firefighters.

"Persistent sustaining speeds on ridgetops and exposed drainages at 10-15 miles an hour, gusting to 20-25, some locally stronger gusts, closer to the Columbia River," said Fire Meteorologist Steve Bodner, who is watching weather effects on the Lower Sugarloaf Fire.. "With our stiff wind coming down from the northwest, that is a down sloping wind for the east slopes. And so you have this competition of showers trying to form but then encountering dryer air in the lower levels as those winds are descending down the east slopes."

"We're seeing a lot of hazard trees as well as roll outs, boulders and rocks that are rolling down on the road," Public Information Officer Ranae Pape said Sunday. "Wind taking some of those trees and dropping them on the road. It really is a very tough place (for firefighters) to get into safely due to all the hazards that are out there."

Pape shared video of how wind is effecting timber and roads on the fire.

A new incident command team arrives on the fires on Monday.

Aerial view of Labor Mountain Fire, Oct. 11.