Single Publication

Swauk Creek Fire

September 12, 2024

Estimated size: 320 acres

Containment: 3%

Start Date/Time: 9/8/2024 at 3:54 PM

Area of Origin: Adjacent to Highway 97, 14 miles east of Cle Elum, WA

Cause: Vehicle Fire/Under Investigation                  

Structures Damaged: 0

Update: Crews continued to monitor the Swauk Creek Fire during the night with minimal overnight growth. Crews are watching the fire edges ensuring the fire has not grown or spotted outside of the fire perimeter. Today, crews will continue to identify locations where it is safe to go direct with the fire line. Due to steep terrain, crews will mostly use handlines around the fire edge. Direct line placement may not be a safe option in other locations on the fire where the terrain is steep. In this instance, crews will use indirect lines, placing them away from the fire perimeter. Crews will then monitor the area between the fire perimeter and the indirect fire line to ensure the fire doesn’t grow beyond the newly constructed indirect line. Dozer lines will be used on other areas of the fire to create a wider line to help stop and hold the fire from future growth.

Air resources will continue dropping water and retardant on the fire as long as the weather permits. We will continue to right-size the incident with needed resources, ensuring we are able to perform the needed work safely and efficiently. As more resources arrive, we are able to spread out the workload on the fire line to accomplish more work in a more compressed timeline.

Road Closures: Highway 97 is now open with no restrictions.

Evacuation Levels: The evacuations remain the same as yesterday. They were updated as a precaution; there is no immediate residential threat from this fire. Evacuations can be found on the interactive map. Many Forest Service roads are affected in this area; please review the map if you want to know about a specific location/road.

Live map of active fires from Kittitas County:

https://kitcogis.maps.arcgis.com/.../minima.../index.html...

The First Creek area is currently closed to the public.

Notification Level 3 (Go Now) is shown on the map; however, this area has no residential structures.

Notification Level 2 (Get ready)

• Residences east of US 97 north of fire to Liberty Rd
• Forest Service Road 3506 south of fire to Upper Green Canyon Rd

Notification Level 1 (Be Fire Aware)

• The town of Liberty
• All Liberty Rd
• Forest Service Road 9726 and all of its extensions (including Deer Gulch, Pine Gulch, Robinson Gulch, and Harkness Gulch)

Currently, no evacuation notices are issued for residents south of First Creek or west of US Highway 97.

As always, conditions can change quickly, please stay alert and avoid the area if you feel unsafe.

Weather and Fire Behavior: A weather system will move off to the east, allowing a drier westerly flow to replace it Thursday into Friday. Breezy winds will continue Thursday and then decrease overnight. Today, we anticipate temperatures to be a high of 62-65 degrees and a low of 44-48 degrees tonight.

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