Firefighters battling large blazes in Central Washington were on alert Saturday, as possible dry lightning storms and erratic winds had the potential to ignite new blazes or whip up existing ones.
Isolated or scattered lightning storms were possible into Saturday evening, and a red flag warning for the region was in effect until early today, said Steven Van Horn, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“It’s not going to take a lot of lightning to get fires started,” he warned Saturday.
Thousands of firefighters have been working to steer fires away from scattered hillside homes and entire communities for weeks now. The fires are burning on 143 square miles of parched forest, brush and grass.
“We’re watching this minute by minute, hour by hour,” said Jim Gumm, a spokesman for the Table Mountain Fire, one of several wildfires burning in the Cascade Range.
The Associated Press
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