9/10/2015 Alder Lake Fire Update

The Alder Lake Fire was ignited by lightning and first reported on Tuesday, August 11, 2015 in very steep inaccessible terrain with heavy dead and down fuel loading. The Gifford Pinchot National Forest, in coordination with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, is currently managing the fire that is approximately 4 miles East of Elbe, Washington on the south side of Alder Lake.. Fire activity has been minimal, and numerous resources, including personnel and equipment that continue to be demobilized. Columbia Cascade Type 3 Incident Management Team was assigned to the fire, and has transitioned to a Type 4 Incident Management Team yesterday.

The fire is 280 acres, 19% contained, with 55 personnel working on the incident. There has been an immense amount of work done by crews to create containment lines consisting of 12.7 miles of roads, dozer, and hand line. Despite recent moisture, interior areas and the west and east edges of the fire continue to burn, exhibiting low rates of spread but high consumption of the available fuels. As we progress through a warming and drying trend this week, smoke will be visible as fuels dry out and continue to burn.

Smoke will continue to be visible until significant precipitation is received from a season ending event.

Road closures are in effect for the 74 and 7409 roads and the area of fire containment and need to be followed. See attached map and closure order for specifics

For more information on the public use restrictions for the Gifford Pinchot visit: http://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/giffordpinchot/alerts-notices

Burn bans in Lewis county and other Washington Department of Natural Resource Lands, please see https://waburnbans.net/recent-burn-bans/category/lewis/ for more information.