Pioneer Fire At Nearly 38,500 Acres, Stehekin Still Threatened
The Pioneer Fire on Lake Chelan has grown to almost 38,500 acres and continues to be dangerously close to buildings in Stehekin.
Fire spokesperson Melanie Banton with California Incident Management Team 15 says special measures have been taken to keep the flames from harming those buildings.
"The historical buildings, they were all wrapped in fire retardant material," said Banton. "And then they had the hose line and sprinklers around everything, so when the fire came down behind Stehekin, it protected the town."
More than 27 miles of fire hose have been stretched through the area to water the ground in and around the town.
Large and very large air tanker jets have been used in recent days to drop fire retardant near Stehekin.
Banton says the air attack has been successful in keeping the fire away from Stehekin Valley.
"We have put retardant down up there on the ridge to keep the fire from moving into those valleys," Banton said. "And that was able to cool everything down a little bit and give the firefighters an opportunity to go in and re-access where they need to put more fire lines."
Ground crews and aircraft have been using favorable weather conditions to build fire lines to contain the fire's northern flank.
There's an ongoing process to prepare contingency fire lines near the southern portion of the fire in case it moves southeast towards the town of Manson. Such a movement is not thought to be likely at this point.
The incident management team says it's continuing to evaluate the effect of precipitation and lightning over the fire recently and take action as necessary.
The Pioneer Fire continues to be 13 percent contained. It’s still estimated the fire will burn into October and eventually be put out by a change to winter weather patterns.
The cause of the fire is believed to be human caused but remains under investigation.