The Little Giant fire jumped over Lake Chelan this weekend.
It’s the kind of thing they warn you about when you’re training to become a firefighter, said Darren McMillin, a spokesperson for one of the out-of-state firefighting teams directed to Central Washington to battle the blaze north of Leavenworth.
But you don’t see it very often.
Typically, large bodies of water, like Chelan, act as a sort of natural barrier, stopping wildfires in their tracks and allowing crews to get a handle on the flames. But high winds and updrafts can propel an ember for miles. If they land in a patch of dry grass or shrubs, they can spark an entirely new fire, turning one disaster into several.
That’s what happened here, McMillin said. High winds pushed an ember more than 2 miles north and east over the lake, where it sparked another fire in some of the country’s harshest terrain.
The fire's behavior illustrates how dire conditions in Washington have become amid unprecedented drought, heat and severe weather conditions. Already, nearly half a million acres have burned across the state, and August only just began.
In just a matter of days, the number of firefighters working the Little Giant skyrocketed from 35 to an estimated 1,349, McMillin said. It is one of the top priority wildfires burning in the country, he said, and crews have arrived from all over to pitch in.
Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison said he even has his deputies boating crews up the lake and keeping the area there clear of vacationers so planes and helicopters can dip down, collecting water to pour over hot spots.
The Little Giant fire is different from the series of blazes burning through the Spokane area. Over there, in Northeast Washington, flames tore through hundreds of buildings — homes and businesses alike — and forced the evacuation of more than 60,000 people. Here, in Central Washington, only about 255 people have been evacuated and around 1,800 structures are at risk, but none have burned, said Mario Rossilli, another spokesperson for McMillin’s crew, officially called California Interagency Incident Management Team 2.
Despite all that, the Little Giant fire bears its own unique significance, in part due to its size and location. As of Monday, it covered more than 51,000 acres, or 79 square miles, nearly the size of Seattle. But it also grew that large relatively quickly, expanding by more than 15 square miles in just a few days.
Just a few weeks ago, Susan Prichard, a scientist with the University of Washington specializing in wildfire ecology, and dozens of other experts toured this very area as part of an effort to understand changing wildfire dynamics. They were struck, she said, by the harsh landscape combined with the amount of fuels that have accumulated over time.
Not only is this a difficult area for firefighters to work — one of the steepest in the country — but those mountain slopes can help fires build and spread faster, she said. Fires like this often can’t be extinguished by human efforts, requiring an act of nature instead.
“That’s why it’s so heartbreaking,” Prichard said. “We’ve got a long time until the winter rains and snow return.”
Hundreds of firefighters made their camp up in Plain, north of Leavenworth. They staked out camps, parked their recreational vehicles and built their own little ecosystem of workers filtering in to rest and out to wade back into the fray.
Some worked directly on the fire while others took up a place on remote and unkempt roads, chipping away at fallen trees, hoping to create a break in the combustible fuels, should the fire turn their way.
For a few hours, that work blocked Brad Burgess from going home up through Chiwawa River Road. He said he’s lived in the area for some 45 years and the fires feel like they’re growing more frequent. He complained that the Little Giant should have been extinguished not long after it sparked.
But early detection and attacks can be difficult. And crews are spread thin and exhausted all across the American West. More than 4,000 firefighters are working across Washington state right now, many from elsewhere in the country. Recent hot, dry and windy days elevated the flames here into some of the most dangerous so far this season.
Aside from the immediate danger to the landscape and communities in Central Washington, Prichard noted the Little Giant is also significant because it is yet another example of massive conflagrations pushing farther and farther west.
In recent generations, Western Washington has enjoyed a mostly wildfire-free lifestyle, Prichard said. But it hasn’t always been that way. Wildfires are a part of the region’s ecology. Sure, some of the wetter and heavier forested areas west of the Cascades tend to see major wildfires much less often than the lands out east. But Prichard said some grassier valleys and lowlands likely saw the phenomenon much more often. To be sure, Indigenous communities also intentionally lit fires of their own as a way to manage the landscape.
People in Western Washington might not be used to wildfires, Prichard said, but the paradigm is shifting. Fuels like grasses, shrubs and trees have accumulated for generations and now the climate is growing hotter and dryer. Features of landscapes, weather and suppression tactics that used to stop these blazes may no longer work.
“I feel really sick about what’s to come. There are just so few places that can stop a wildfire in its tracks,” Prichard said. “If Lake Chelan can’t do it …”
The wildfire season still has months to go, too, Prichard noted.
While it’s clear wildfires are returning to Washington’s landscape “with a vengeance,” Prichard offered a glimmer of hope. All is not lost, she said.
First, there is much local, state and federal officials can do in the months and years ahead to curtail risk. Forest thinning and different types of prescribed burns can reduce risk in dangerous areas. Even strategically allowing some natural wildfires to continue burning late into the year can help cut those fuels, she said.
Plus, once wildfires burn through an area, they won’t be able to burn again as severely (though the burn scars do offer a whole new host of challenges) because there won’t be as much material to burn. So even as climate change worsens, eventually these wildfires will become more manageable.
The question remaining is: How much more damage will they cause between now and then?
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