Washington Fire containment at 56 percent, staffing reduced
Submitted by editor on Tue, 06/30/2015 - 9:09am
Containment grew to 56 percent along the Washington Fire line south of Markleeville overnight, allowing for a reduction in firefighters Tuesday from 1,111 to 860, according to Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center. The fire has burned 17,787 acres.
Among the crews, there are 26 hand crews, 27 engines, 9 water tenders and 7 helicopters fighting the fire with an estimated costs thus far of $9.3 million.
With cooler temperatures and an increase in humidity over the past 24 hours, firefighters were able to make good progress on line construction. As of Monday, fire crews continued to construct direct fire line on northern and southern portions of the fire while crews assigned to the eastern and western side continued to mop up and extinguish any hot spots that they encountered.
As fire containment increases, fire crews and apparatus will continue to be released back to their home fire stations to prepare for potential new fires.
Fire weather forecasters have predicted cooler temperatures today with a chance of thunderstorms accompanied by intermittent rain showers over the fire area. Firefighters will continue to take advantage of the favorable weather to complete direct hand line on the southern fire perimeter while firefighters assigned to the Markleeville area will continue to mop up and rehabilitate the fire line constructed earlier in the incident.
The structure engines assigned to Markleeville completed their last shift Monday and will begin the demobilization process Tuesday.
All state highways through the fire are currently open to through traffic. This includes State Highway 4 over Ebbetts Pass and State Highway 89, east over Monitor Pass to Highway 395. The fire area is still under a Forest Service closure and is not accessible to the general public; however, both the BLM area closure and the Indian Creek Campground closure were lifted at 8 a.m. Tuesday.
Law enforcement will continue patrolling the fire area and will issue citations to non-fire individuals found in the closure area. The public is encouraged to use caution when traveling on State Highway 4 and 89 as fire crews will continue to be active along the roadways throughout the fire area.
An area closure is still in effect for the fire area and can be found at http://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/htnf/alerts-notices.
