That Time of Year

Summer has finally arrived in North Central Washington and with it our fire season is ramping up quickly. The high temps (90+ degrees) we've had over the past week or so has brought with it thunder and lightning storms. Our vegetation is quickly drying out and it doesn't take much to start a fire.

As we pulled into the Beebe Bridge campground near Chelan late yesterday afternoon, we could see the smoke and even flames from a fire south of us near Highway 97. The online report was an approximate 100 acre wildfire. I don't know the cause of it though.

We kept an eye on things as we settled into our campsite. Occasionally a pumper truck would go by the campground to get more water and then return to continue fighting the fire. Luckily the crews were able to quickly contain the fire before nightfall.

Wildfire - See the flames on the hill?

Here is what the hillside looked like when we drove by this morning.

Fire Aftermath

Unbelievably, even with the high temps, we still had a campfire last night. Honestly, it was just too freaking hot out to enjoy it. No s'mores for me!

We did have a couple of small thunder showers overnight and the forecast is for more again this evening. One of my Washington DNR tweets received today reported over "8,000 lightning strikes in the region and more expected." Yikes! Lets keep our fingers crossed that nothing major pops up near where we are in Cashmere, WA tonight.