'Super-massive' plume of smoke expected in Seattle area as wildfires rage across West

Sep. 10--Fires across the region continued to rage Thursday morning as strong winds helped expand several new and existing fires.

"Large fires smoked out the valleys in western Oregon and had significant growth. ... Large fires in Washington had moderate growth," according to Thursday's morning report from the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center.

Meanwhile, weather officials warned a dense and "super-massive" plume of smoke was heading toward Western Washington which will further foul the air. Officials said the cloud of smoke and ash, mostly from monstrous fires burning in California and Oregon, was too high in the atmosphere at this point to cause serious health effects. But predictions are that it will mix downward over the next day and make for unhealthy air conditions overnight.

"Up until now, an easterly flow of air has kept much of the smoke and particles out over the Pacific," said Justin Pullin, a senior forecaster and meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Seattle. But beginning late Thursday, he said, the air flow will transition to a southwesterly direction, pushing the murk into the Puget Sound area, he said.

Just how much of it will settle to the point of affecting air quality on the ground, Pullin said, wasn't clear at this point, but it guarantees "that we will see a noticeable change in sky conditions.

"This is not going to do anything to improve the air quality, that's for sure," he said.

Pullin said poor air quality alerts will remain in effect until 11 a.m. Monday throughout most of Western Washington, when there is hope that some precipitation will clear things out.

The largest fires burning in Eastern Washington -- the Cold Springs and Pearl Hill fires -- have burned more 346,000 acres in Okanogan and Douglas counties. Those two are parts of the same fire, but they started being administered separately when the flames jumped the Columbia River into Douglas County.

Okanogan County Sheriff Tony Hawley said his detectives have begun a homicide investigation into the death of a 1-year-old child who was killed as his family attempted to flee the Cold Springs fire, in the event the blaze turns out to have been man-caused.

Whoever started it could face criminal charges in the child's death. The child's parents were taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with third-degree burns, where they were in critical condition on Thursday, said Harborview spokesperson Susan Gregg.

The family had been camping on their property and tried to flee advancing flames. Their truck was found burned and abandoned. The couple had fled nearly a mile to the Columbia River, where they were rescued. Hawley identified the child's parents as 31-year-old Jacob Hyland and 26-year-old Jamie Hyland of Renton, Washington. A family member identified their son as Uriel Hyland, the sheriff said.

Gov. Jay Inslee said the child's death marks the first fatality of the 2020 fire season.

"Trudi and I were heartbroken to hear about the loss of this child in the wildfires that have ravaged our state," he said. "There is nothing I can say that can ease the pain from a loss of this magnitude. This child's family and community will never be the same. And neither will countless others who are reeling from the utter devastation these wildfires are leaving in their wake."

On Thursday morning, the Cold Springs fire was reported at 172,000 acres and 10% contained. The Pearl Hill fire had burned 174,000 acres and was 41% contained as of Wednesday night.

Overall, fire officials said more than 30 fires burning in Washington and Oregon have scorched more than 1.3 million acres.

Nowhere was the sudden devastation more evident than in the blackened stretch of road and charred foundations of what had been the town of Malden, population 200. In a matter of hours on Monday, in broad daylight, more than 80 percent of the town's structures burned to the ground. Residents had just minutes to evacuate, said town Mayor Christine Ferrell.

Whitman County Sheriff Brett Myers told The Spokesman Review that about 95 homes and 100 other structures were destroyed in the firestorm, including town hall, the library and fire station, with its aged engine still inside.

The tragedy drew the attention of Gov. Inslee, who toured Malden on Thursday, and from Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, who on Wednesday joined Ferrell on an emotional tour of what had been the town's Main Street.

Inslee remarked that wildfires have scorched nearly 937 square miles of Washington just this week, which he called the "worst few days in wildfire history for Washington state," amounting to more acreage burned already this year than any other in the state's history except for 2015, when more than a million acres burned.

"We've had this trauma all over Washington," Inslee said, according to a report by The Associated Press. "But this is the place where the whole heart of the town was torn out."

Malden is a farm town set among wheat fields about 35 miles south of Spokane.

Inslee has declared a state of emergency to free up cash assistance for families in need. Crews have started work to restore utilities.

During her Wednesday tour of the town, where smoke could still be seen rising from the charred fields, Franz was obviously moved and stopped at one point to hug the mayor. She promised to replace the town's fire truck, and argued for better funding for the state's fire prevention and response mechanisms.

Franz, who was elected in 2016, last year asked lawmakers to support a bill that would have added a $5 surcharge to home and car insurance policies to generate roughly $62 million a year for forest maintenance and firefighting resources. Franz told lawmakers last year that the state spends about $155 million a year fighting fires.

She argued the state could spend less to fight fires if it spent more up front in maintenance and preparation.

"Investing up front and getting at the root of the issue, having the resources to fight these fires and keep them small, and investing in the landscape of these communities to be more resilient will go farther in saving money and saving lives," she said. "And people need to start to wake up to that."

The windy conditions helped the Big Hollow fire in southwestern Washington -- first reported Wednesday morning -- grow from 6,000 to 22,000 acres in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Officials there plan to close all developed campgrounds, dispersed camping, day-use areas, wilderness areas and all forest roads and trails within the southwestern portions of the forest.

According to the Columbian newspaper in Vancouver, residents of north Clark County were told Wednesday night to be ready to evacuate.

Meanwhile, a fire that caused evacuations in Bonney Lake on Wednesday night has been extinguished, according to a tweet from the Bonney Lake Police. That blaze began behind a Target store, the Bonney Lake Police Department tweeted around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. Homes within a three-block radius were evacuated.

In Oregon, officials say several runaway fires have killed at least three people and destroyed hundreds of homes amid mass evacuations.

Some communities, including Detroit and Blue River in the Cascades, and Talent and Phoenix in southwest Oregon, have been substantially burned, according to Gov. Kate Brown, who spoke to reporters on Wednesday.

The Oregonian reported Thursday that at least three people have died, with the death toll expected to rise in coming days.

"This could be the greatest loss of human life from wildfire in our state's history," said Brown, who called the fires "unprecedented."

Some of the most destructive fires have been pushed by fierce east winds through heavily timbered valleys and canyons on the west side of the state, including blazes now burning east of Portland, Salem and Eugene.

The explosive growth of the fires can be seen in a report on the Beachie Creek fire in the Cascades, which grew from 469 acres to 131,000 acres overnight and forced evacuation of firefighters trying to contain it.

Information from the Longview Daily News is included in this report.

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