Washington lands officials are closing the northern part of a state conservation area in Okanogan County because of a Canadian wildfire that’s burning toward the border.
The Department of Natural Resources say the order closes all trails and some roads in the northern block of the Loomis Natural Resources Conservation Area. It also closes the Cold Springs Overlook and Campground.
The fire north of the border has charred 54,000 acres on the eastern side of the Cascades in British Columbia.
It’s been a significant year for wildfires in many parts of Canada. It’s been a routine year for fires in Washington.
“We only have a couple of large fires on the landscape and, given that it’s the middle of August, that is actually a really great story because that’s not typical," said Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz.
One of those fires is the Sourdough, which is burning about 4,500 acres in steep, rugged terrain in the North Cascades National Park.
“This is the one that’s been creating sort of a lot of the smoke that we’ve seen and the impact on our air quality in Washington, along with, obviously, fires that are in Canada," Franz said.
The Sourdough fire is causing boulders to dislodge and roll down the hill onto State Highway 20, the North Cascades Highway, which remains closed. The other fire is burning about 265 acres of federal land near Winthrop.
Overall, she says, about 1,200 fires have been reported this summer in the state, the vast majority of them burning only a few acres or less.
“You can’t miss out on social media all the local fire districts that appear to be responding in rapid pace, in every corner of the state, to these pop-up fires, whether they’re on the side of the highway or in someone’s backyard," she said.
"We usually are getting about three or four of these fires that are popping around Spokane and our firefighters are scrambling to put them out at the local and the state level.”
Franz is urging people who are outside this weekend to be careful about not starting fires, given the hot, dry, windy conditions all around the state.
