Brushfire in Rock Island Contained; Air Support Not Deployed

The brushfire near Rock Island Dam is seemingly under control.

At 1:45 this afternoon, RiverCom Dispatch received reports of an emerging brushfire on Highway 28.

By 4:00 p.m. the fire was contained. The following account was relayed to KPQ by Wenatchee Valley Fire Chief Brian Brett.

"Wenatchee Valley Fire Department crews responded out to Milepost 12 by the waste station for a brushfire this afternoon. When crews arrived, it already exceeded 10 acres."

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"We launched air resources; however, they were delayed. One helicopter was coming back from an incident in Yakima. The other was coming out of Electric City. So we had an hour to wait for air support."

"We went second alarm. Crews were able to do an excellent job holding it on the river side of the highway; it burned right up to SR 28 and we contained it along the roadside. Stopped it on the upriver flank and downriver flank."

"We used a two-track road along the river and protected a pump house from being damaged by the fire."

"Lines have lines around the fire at this time and we're transitioning into mop-up."

"The fire's contained at approximately 50-75 acres. It's still got some active burning with some fuels that we're tracking."

As it stands there are 47 personnel at the scene.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, "mopping-up describes the hard physical labor process of extinguishing or removing burning material near control lines."

"On a typical fire crews will ‘mop-up’ to the extent necessary to minimize the likelihood of the fire moving into unburned areas outside of the edge of the fireline."