Grant County issues fire ban

EPHRATA — With the air full of smoke and pungent with the smell of brush fires, the Grant County Commission on Wednesday imposed an immediate ban on outdoors fires in Grant County.

“The Inland Northwest and Grant County are experiencing large wildfires,” read a commission press release. “Even though most of these fires have not been the result of open burning, the likelihood of large wild land fires is high.”

The ban forbids the burning of yard wastes on unincorporated county land, though agriculture fires are still allowed if permitted by the Department of Ecology, and recreational fires at campgrounds are still allowed at public campgrounds when permitted by campground management, the commission said.

According to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, a federal agency in Portland, Ore., that monitors wildfires in Washington and Oregon, roughly 19,500 acres are burning in three separate fires in the hills between Wenatchee and Ephrata, and another 600 acres are on fire northwest of Yakima.

Two of the fires were started by lightning strikes, and two are currently under investigation, according to the center’s website.

The National Weather Service has issued a “red flag warning” covering all of Grant, Adams, and Douglas counties, citing “low humidity and gusty winds.”

The commissioners are imposing the wildfire ban to prevent loss of life and damage to property as well as to try and reduce the amount of time fire crews spend fighting brush fires in Grant County.

Despite the ban, the hot and dry weather combined with lots of dry grass and sagebrush mean the county officials anticipate new wildfires this summer.

“The risks include nighttimes fires which may be ignited by summertime lightning storms,” the press release said.

The countywide burn ban imposed on Wednesday “does not change the burn ban imposed on cities in Grant County” in 2007 by the Department of Ecology, the commission said. That ban, which was imposed statewide on all Urban Growth Areas, will still be in place when the current countywide fire ban is lifted.

And if conditions worsen, the county commission “may impose additional measures to prevent fires,” the press release said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com