Over the past week, the Western Pines Fire has quickly become one of the most devastating natural disasters in recent Lake Roosevelt memory. As of today, the fire has destroyed 25 homes around Moccasin Bay, 5 miles down river from the Little Falls Dam.
As of this morning, the fire is burning 5,812 acres and has been 12% contained, up from 0% yesterday.
On Sunday evening, Lincoln County Commissioner Scott Hutsell reported “over 300 firefighters and almost 100 trucks, water tenders and crawlers fighting the fire,” and said that there have been “up to 10 different aircraft including planes, helicopters and the DNR DC3 out of Moses Lake dropping retardant on the fire. They have a pretty good perimeter.” The community faces a long recovery ahead and Hutsell is already working with other leaders to assess the damage and start a multi-agency rebuilding process.
The Forum encourages all residents around the Lake Roosevelt area to remain cautious and stay tuned to news, radio, and television for the possibility of evacuation orders. Although the cold front that arrived today will help containment efforts, fires are always hard to predict.
Watch Duty is a particularly great non-profit and volunteer-driven resource for locating real-time updates and fire maps. Its website is accessible through this link, and it can also be downloaded as an app.
As always, please reach out to us at the Forum at info@lrf.org if there’s any additional information that we can provide.
