Blaze vaults Snake River

A wildfire pushed by wind gusts as high as 40 mph jumped Lower Granite Reservoir and burned thousands of acres on both sides of the Snake River Tuesday.

The fire started on the Garfield County side of the river near Granite Point, about 30 miles west of Clarkston. Kris Darby, director of emergency management for Garfield County, said he expected it to burn through the night and cover vast areas of the arid and mostly empty country between the river and farmland at the top of the canyon.

"Very big drainages on our side of the river are going to burn out," he said. "By morning it could be over 10,000 acres."

He said farmland at the top of the canyon was threatened by the fire, but wind was helping keep the flames away from crops and homes scattered throughout the agricultural ground.

The fire covered a three-mile roadless stretch of the river on the Garfield County side by midevening.

Jeff Cote, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Spokane, said wind speeds of 15 to 20 mph, with gusts of 25 to 35 mph, were recorded at Lewiston during the fire. A weather station at Uniontown clocked winds at 20 to 25 mph, with steady gusts of 35 mph and some as high as 44 mph. The weather service issued a red flag warning for huge chunks of eastern Washington and northern Idaho Tuesday. The warnings are issued when weather conditions are ideal for the rapid spread of fire.

The wind Tuesday was strong enough to carry embers across the reservoir, sparking new blazes.

"I was shocked that it jumped that far," said Noel Hardin, chief of Asotin County Fire District No. 1. "The river is a half mile wide down in there."

Once on the Whitman County side of the river, the fire raced upslope in a northeasterly direction, popped over a finger ridge and into Wawawai Canyon. Firefighters from Whitman County Fire District 14, along with help from several regional fire departments, including Pullman, Palouse and Asotin County Fire District No. 1, worked to the keep the fire from crossing the road and to protect nearby homes.

Hardin said both Garfield and Whitman counties asked for state mobilization, a request that garners state firefighting resources ranging from personnel and equipment to logistical planning from across Washington.

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