Two brush fires get out of hand on a windy Friday afternoon

The Okanogan Public Utility District (PUD) shut off the electricity from Pateros to Twisp about 12:45 p.m. on Friday afternoon (May 3) so firefighters could attack a fire burning one of the utility’s transmission poles, near Benson Creek Drive and Highway 153.

PUD officials determined the pole was still sound after the fire and didn’t need to be replaced, utility Community Relations Coordinator Sheila Corson said. Power was restored to all customers within three hours.

Ordinarily, an outage along the transmission line from Pateros would be backed up by a power line over Loup Loup into Twisp. However, work is ongoing to upgrade that line in order to provide a back-up power source for Winthrop and Mazama. That work prevented the Loup Loup line from powering Twisp on Friday, Corson said.

The fire was started by individuals burning dead grass along a fence line, next to the pole, Okanogan County Fire District 6 Chief Cody Acord said.

The crew was wrapping up at the utility pole fire when it was called directly to a brush-pile fire that had gotten out of control on Poorman Creek Road, 3 miles west of Twisp.

Paul Christen was burning a pile of brush, he said, when the wind picked up and scattered embers across his field. Christen said he called for aid after the fire jumped a ditch and got into a tree-covered slope along a private drive north of Poorman Creek Road.

The temperature in Twisp was 67 degrees around the time of the fires, with the wind gusting up to 18 mph.

The fire was started by individuals burning dead grass along a fence line, next to the pole, Okanogan County Fire District 6 Chief Cody Acord said.

Firefighters had the Poorman Creek Road blaze well in hand by 2:15 p.m. Fire Chief Cody Acord said a fire crew from the Department of Natural Resources arrived to assist with mop-up.

No structures were threatened in the Poorman Creek Road fire. No injuries were reported from either fire on Friday.