FIRE REPORT: 2 fires hit Grant Co. Monday

COLUMBIA BASIN — The warm weather has arrived and with it the fire season, as Grant County faced two wildfires Monday.

At about 1 p.m. a report came in of a blaze about a mile south of Wanapum Village in southwestern Grant County, according to a statement from the Grant County Sheriff’s Office. The fire grew to 100 acres and caused State Route 243 to close briefly due to smoke across the roadway before it was knocked down, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The fire was human-caused, the NIFC wrote.

About two hours after the Wanapum Fire was reported, a controlled burn turned out not to be quite as controlled as it should have been and burned into some orchard debris piles at Road B and Road 19 Northwest, according to the GCSO. Crews from Grant County fire districts 7 and 13 responded and put the fire out. No structures were lost or damaged, the GCSO wrote.

On Friday, Grant County Fire District 13 put out a vehicle fire that had spread to the surrounding brush near State Route 28 and Neva Lake Road south of Ephrata, according to a statement by the fire district.

Some fires burning Monday around Washington were prescribed burns in the Colville National Forest and on the Colville and Spokane reservations. 

However, the human-caused Harlan Landing Fire between Yakima and Selah was at 100 acres Thursday, the most recent day for which the NIFC had updated data. The Naches Canal fire about 14 miles northwest of Yakima was reported a little after 3:30 Monday afternoon at about 1 acre and was in the mopping-up phase by about 4:45. In Benton County, the Gibbon Road fire, discovered Saturday about midway between Prosser and Benton City, had reached 30 acres by 3 p.m. that afternoon, according to the NIFC. The cause was given as human.