Friday, August 15
Rain means firefighters are beginning to leave Lone Mountain Fire. With an inch and a half falling in two days, Michael Vasquez’s fire-fighting team is starting to shut down and demobilize.
North Cascades National Park employees will be keeping an eye on the high mountain burn, to see if it returns to life after the rains. Heat can remain in dead trees and forest debris for a long time, and reignite if dry weather returns.
Firefighters were braced for a return of warmer, drier weather, but “I guess Mother Nature decided our time was up,” said Vasquez. The fire was first detected on July 14.
During a month of active burning on the 2,770 acre Lone Mountain Fire, local firefighters had help from Oregon, California, Montana, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Texas, Wyoming, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Minnesota, New York, Georgia and Florida.
Together, the firefighters held the blaze away from the Stehekin community and out of the Twisp River drainage, while allowing it to create a mosaic of burned and unburned areas in the high mountains.
