Mills Canyon Fire, July 8th, 2014, Entiat, Washington

Mills Canyon Fire, July 8th, 2014, Entiat, Washington

It looks like this summer will be a hot one in central Washington.  The forecast is for hot weather the next two weeks with temperatures bumping 100 degrees on several days.  Tomorrow, it look like it will be a red flag warning for high temperatures, low humidity, and most important high winds up to 30 mph.  Tomorrow, would be a good day for the National Weather Service to miss their forecast!!

The fire started as a structure fire in Mills Canyon, which is just south of the Entiat River.  The fire spread from the structure into the adjacent wildlands.  The report of the fire was received at 11:54 am.  The picture above is taken from the bottom of Burch Mountain Rd. in Wenatchee.  This picture was taken at 4:31 pm.

At the time the estimated acreage was 2,000.  This photo is taken 13 miles from the fire.  Reports are that there was a significant ash fall from the column.  I heard at least one helicopter flying the fire.

This picture has a slightly different perspective.  As you can see in the picture the winds are pushing the fire in a south-east direction.  This picture was taken at 4:52 pm.

Chelan County has closed the upper portion of the Burch Mountain Road.  The following picture was taken at 5.29 pm.  One air tanker is now on the fire, along with two helicopters, 15 engines and 250 firefighter according to the Forest Service at 3:15 pm.  A Incident Mangement Team is taking over the fire management duties tomorrow.  The Chelan County Sheriff has ordered evacuations in the vicinity of the fire.

Large fires starting in Mills Canyon area in previous years have ran all the way into the outskirts of Wenatchee.  This happened in 1970, 1988, and most recently in 2010-Swakane Fire.

It should be a very interesting day tomorrow.