Washington Fire 15 percent contained
Keeping flames from reaching Markleeville is the top priority. Photo/Susan Wood
Update 7:35pm:
The Washington Fire, which is three miles from the town of Markleeville, is 15 percent contained.
Markleeville residents are under an evacuation advisory issued by Alpine County Sheriff’s Office. No mandatory evacuations are in effect at this time.
“Significant progress has been made toward containing the western flank of the fire south of Markleeville,” according to officials.
The fire has burned 16,490 acres. The reduction in the reported fire size is due to more accurate mapping.
Smoke was bad in the Incline Village area on Thursday, with minimal impacts on the South Shore.
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The Washington Fire burning near Markleeville remains at 10 percent containment on Thursday.
It has burned 17,205 acres since Friday.
“The primary tactical priority is to prevent the fire from reaching Markleeville. The next priorities are to contain the fire in the Wolf Creek and Monitor Pass area. Tomorrow’s weather forecast calls for sunny, hazy, and increasing temperatures with northerly light winds in the afternoon. Forecasted dry thunderstorms with strong outflow winds remain a concern Friday,” officials said.
Highways 4 and 89 in the Monitor and Ebbetts pass areas remain closed. Several campgrounds along Highway 4 south of Markleeville as well as the Turtle Rock and Indian Creek campgrounds north of Markleeville remain closed. The Pacific Crest Trail is open.
Among the 900 people the blaze are 12 helicopters and three air tankers.
The fire was ignited by lightning, that occurred in previous storms in the weeks before, yet remained undetected until June 19.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
“weeks before”
Inaccurate reporting. D+, unfit for publication.
Thanks for the update on the Washington Fire. A slight chance of rain in the next few days,unfortuntely also mixed with lightning.
Fire, smoke, pollen. drought. What’s next? Locusts?
Take care, Old Long Skiis (the optimistic Mayor)
Weeks before is directly from fire personnel. Maybe you should question their facts.
Kathryn Reed, LTN publisher
Duke of Prunes-complete a-hole on every comment, F, unfit for commenting
Duke, fyi lightning strikes in trees can smoulder undetected for weeks. Then a wind kicks up and sends sparks flying. It is well documented.
nature bats last, Yes, a lightning strike can start a small smoldering fire in the duff and go undetected for quite sometime. A little wind and the fire starts.
I’ve been caught in several lightning storms . Always exciting but also scary.
Lets hope the fire crews get this Washington Fire under controll and stop it from spreading.
Be fire safe as we are in a “red flag warning” from the fire district. OLS
Hey OLS, how is your little garden doing?
Have a good summer!
Not too windy today so less chance of the fire spreading.
Nature Bats Last or “NBL”. You see I got stuck being called OLS, So I’m just passing it along the abbreviation to you. Nice guy , huh?
The garden is doing fine but slow. You remebmer that story between the Tortoise and the Hare? “Slow and steady wins the race”. The same can be said for growing vegetables in Tahoe.
Now lets get that fire out!!! Old Long Skiis
What date was the lightning strike?
Last solid date that radar shows storms in the are was 6/9. 10 days is not weeks. Unless we are talking metric weeks, then its 2 metric weeks.
http://www.wunderground.com/weather-radar/united-states/nv/reno/rgx/history/?date=2015-06-09
Markleeville is not that far from Tahoe as the embers fly.15 percent of containment is a start. Lets hope they get this fire stopped before it spreads further.
Hope for rain and no winds. OLS
Prunes… For as smart as you are you sure sound like an idiot.
Thanks for the subtle take down disguised as a compliment, I really had it coming.
It is only 3 miles from Markleeville.
Come on people, quit hacking at one another.
This is an unfortunate situation. It doesn’t matter when the lightning hit. It remained un detected until it generated enough smoke to see. Normal…smoldering fires often do not generate smoke visible from a distance. We don’t have a “fire fairy” looking at all remote areas all the time.
Even with 900 men on this fire, it works out to .05 persons per acre more or less, or 18 acres per person more or less. They are doing what they can.
All resources are stretched, there are fires all over. It is something to think about when you decide to move to the woods.
The LTN comments will always be a bit nuanced toward the “who to blame” sector as all media does. We are a culture who only wants to be titillated by sensational things and bad news,(for somebody else) nobody reads good news, ergo no clicks/$$$ generated news.
If this pisses you off, don’t sign on and read it. I promise this would rapidly change the tone if everybody did that.