OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — The Paradise Fire flared up Saturday evening and Sunday morning, creating a smoky haze and advancing the western fire front.
The fire, aided by hot, dry weather, was working its way west but has not reached Bob Creek, said Koshare Eagle, spokeswoman for the team managing the fire burning in the Queets River valley, 13 miles inside Olympic National Park.
Bob Creek has been designated by fire managers as the western containment line, a natural barrier where firefighters have a chance to stop the fire from moving farther west into less controlled areas.
The fire is currently 21 percent contained by natural barriers north of the Queets river and inside the Queets River valley’s rocky ridges to the east.
New acreage has not been established because the fire team has not been able to get a infrared flight to measure the new fire boundaries, Eagle said.
The last time the fire was mapped it had reached 1,786 acres— the largest wildfire on record since the Olympic National Park was created.
An inversion at about 2,000 feet above sea level created smoke impacts in many river valleys along the southwest side of the Olympic Peninsula.
Smoke was thick enough to obscure views from Kloochman Lookout Rock, a former fire observation tower located southwest of the fire on the northern rim of the Queets River valley near Coal Creek, Eagle said in the daily fire report.
A full-motion video camera was installed at the site to provide fire managers with real-time information and thermal imaging, she said.
Eagle said the camera system is capable of detecting hot spots and potential new starts, even through thick inversions and marine layers.
A similar camera has been installed on a ridge east of the fire, she said.
The fire was sparked by lighting in mid-May and smoldered in deep duff until June 14, when dry conditions allowed it to move into dry moss and lichen in the tree canopy and burn 300 acres in a few days.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
