A blast of hot, windy weather will challenge the nearly 730 firefighters battling the 55-square-mile Pioneer wildfire this week, which has crept to about a quarter-mile from the boat-in resort town of Stehekin, fire officials said Monday.
Temperatures in the Central Washington town are expected to reach the 90s and upper 80s through Sunday, with wildfire smoke clouding the sky and degrading air quality, according to the National Weather Service. The heat, along with wind gusts of about 30 miles per hour, the dry vegetation and steep terrain, could make it harder for firefighters to combat the blaze, which has been scorching the eastern side of Lake Chelan since early June, said Northwest Interagency Coordination Center spokesperson Brad Bramlett.
While wind poses the biggest threat, high heat drying out such fuels as pine needles, leaves and twigs “can make the conditions for fire growth that much more dire,” Bramlett said in a phone call Monday. It’s unclear whether firefighters will be able to keep the fire — which was about a mile and a half from Stehekin last Tuesday — from breaching the town.
“A lot of it depends on what the weather conditions, specifically the wind does in that area,” Bramlett said. “What the crews are doing now are laying eyes on it, with boots on the ground, and watching to see what it does.”
