Wildfire Smoke Blows Into Seattle Areas; Fires Burn East and West of Mountains
By Joseph O’Sullivan, Lynda V. Mapes, and Elise Takahama, Seattle Times
Fierce winds and dry, hot weather sparked dozens of wildfires throughout the state Monday and Tuesday, filling the Seattle area with smoke, forcing hundreds of families to flee their homes and knocking out power in thousands of others. One Washington town was nearly destroyed by a blaze south of Spokane.
The fires made for miserable air quality in parts of Western Washington, after the blazes erupted on both sides of the Cascades. Fire crews in California and Oregon also battled fast-moving flames, prompting mass evacuations.
Gov. Jay Inslee said in a Tuesday news conference about 330,000 acres had burned in the previous 24 hours, more than double the acreage burned last year in Washington. Crews were still working on nine “significant” fires in the state as of Tuesday afternoon.
“This is an unprecedented and heartbreaking event … We’re living in a new world. This is not the old Washington,” Inslee said Tuesday. “A fire that you might’ve seen that was going to be OK over time isn’t OK anymore because the conditions are so dry, they’re so hot, they’re so windy — because the climate has changed.”
Inslee hasn’t declared an emergency in any counties, but said he was considering taking further action to speed up assistance to those in need.
West of the Cascades, a brush fire tore through a neighborhood in Graham, while another fire burned Tuesday in a forested area near Enumclaw and Highway 410.
The Graham fire forced about 100 people to evacuate Monday and destroyed six homes and a few other structures, according to Steve Richards, assistant chief for Graham Fire and Rescue. No injuries were reported.
Tim VanBrocklin stood Tuesday surveying the damage in his neighborhood, eyeing smoking hot spots amid the wreckage of scorched homes and vehicles.
He and others in the neighborhood evacuated Monday night with almost no notice.
“You didn’t have time to pack clothes, it was like, get out, now,” said VanBrocklin, a construction worker who is in his 50s. As he and others left, “It was pretty nasty here, embers flying around our faces.”
His home escaped damage. But VanBrocklin said he’s never seen a fire like this during his 16 years in the neighborhood. He said he worried powerful winds would return to kick up lingering embers.
While the fire is still under investigation, Richards said it is believed that the high winds likely brought a tree down on nearby power lines, sparking the blaze. Richards described the “firestorm” as a challenge due to the wind, the dry vegetation and the darkness in which the firefighters had to fight it.
By Monday night, easterly winds were pushing smoke into the Seattle area, and it kept coming all night long.
Sunrise looked more like sunset Tuesday morning, with the sun rising big and orange, and casting coppery light over the morning landscape, as the sun’s rays filtered through smoke.
Air quality was reported as unhealthy around Seattle by the state Department of Ecology. National Weather Service meteorologist Maddie Kristell said Tuesday evening that wildfire smoke will continue to linger in the air throughout the region, though it’ll ebb and flow as winds shift. The weather service has also issued air quality concerns and advisories that will extend until at least Wednesday afternoon.
The gusty winds on Monday also left Puget Sound Energy with lots of work to do restoring power around the region. Inslee said Tuesday more than 100,000 customers were without power in Washington.
Brush fires in Sumner and Bonney Lake also closed portions of HIghway 167 and Highway 410..
Many parts of the state are in for hot, dry weather this week, which will sustain critical fire conditions. Areas in the southwest and the interior will see temperatures into the 90s. Seattle, which normally enjoys temperatures in the 70s at this time of year, will instead be in the upper 80s.
The weather service has issued a warning that elderly people, children, people experiencing homelessness and those with health issues are at risk because of the heat. It is especially important not to leave children or pets in a car or outdoors unattended.
The extended outlook is for a switch from offshore flow to onshore flow, which will cool temperatures somewhat on Friday and Saturday. But temperatures will still be warmer than normal.
Climate change stokes wildfire risks
The conditions the state is experiencing now are predicted to be more common.
Climate models forecast hotter, drier summers and wetter winters, Washington state climatologist Nick Bond said. Both can set up perfect conditions for fire, as lush vegetation grown in the spring dries out and is just waiting for conditions, like over the holiday weekend, to spark fire.
Adding to the woe on Monday was a complicated mix of downstream effects from typhoons in the North Pacific, Bond said. Those distant storms set up a rumpus in the atmosphere that blasted the region with wind.
Gusty winds when trees are still in full leaf make for more ruckus. All those leaves create enormous forces of drag, snapping tree limbs that can fall on power lines.
When conditions are also primed for fire, we get what firefighters are battling now.
“These drier summers will likely be in our future,” Bond said. “We definitely see a warming trend and lower elevation snowpacks dwindling, overall.”
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is crucial to reduce the most extreme effects of climate change, including hotter temperatures and more extreme fires.