OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — A forest fire on the western slope of the Olympic Mountains grew by 200 acres in a single evening and is expected to erupt again as warm, dry weather settles into the area.
The previously slow-growing Paradise Fire erupted late Sunday afternoon into an active wildfire as winds fanned the flames up a steep slope and across treetops.
Cooler and calmer weather Monday morning damped down the flames and slowed the fire’s progress.
The Jefferson County fire is inside Olympic National Park on the north floodplain of the Queets River valley near Paradise Creek, 13 miles northeast of Quinault.
The fire was officially listed by officials at 407 acres Sunday morning and grew to an estimated 600 acres by Monday morning, Diane Avendrop, spokeswoman for the team assigned to the fire, said Monday.
“The fire has been picking up in the late afternoon and evening on days with warm and dry weather. Most of the growth happens then,” Avendrop said.
Because of the amount of smoke obscuring the fire area, it was uncertain exactly how many acres had burned overnight, she said.
Avendrop said a helicopter operating out of Port Angeles was on its way to fly over the fire Monday afternoon to map the fire’s new boundaries.
Fire managers planned to hold a public information meeting in Port Angeles at 7 p.m. Monday to provide new maps and photos of the fire area and an update of the fire activity.
A second meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. today in Forks, but a location for the meeting had not been announced by Monday evening.
[The PDN’s website, www.peninsuladailynews.com, will report the location as soon as it’s announced.]
Warm temperatures and low humidity were forecast for the area for the coming week — conditions that are expected to help the fire continue to grow.
On Monday, an 18-member firefighting team was working the fire from the ground level while two helicopters used bucket drops of water to slow the fire’s spread, using a portable tank set up along the Queets River to supply water.
The fire is burning through dry lichen and moss in old-growth treetops in a remote, steep, heavily vegetated area of the park.
The area contains dangers to firefighters including rolling rocks, falling snags, and unstable burning material, conditions that make it impossible for firefighters to build a fire line.
It is located deep inside the park’s wilderness area and is not threatening any structures.
The fire is believed to have been started by a lighting strike between May 17 and May 21, and smoldered in the underbrush until it was discovered by a private pilot flying through the area June 14, Avendrop said.
A team of 10 specially trained firefighters from California were initially assigned to assess the fire, which had to be accessed by trail due to the location of the fire.
The California firefighters were pulled from the fire Sunday, and were replaced with a fresh team of 18 firefighters, Avendrop said.
The new wildland firefighting team includes members from the Black Hills Wildland Fire Module in South Dakota, the Hebron Wildland Fire Module from the Klamath National Forest in California, Olympic National Forest and Olympic National Park.
One of the two helicopters assigned to the fire is on loan from the Grand Canyon National Park and the other is from the National Park Service Pacific Northwest fleet, Avendrop said.
Separate from the firefighting team, the current fire management team is operating from the park headquarters in Port Angeles, Avendrop said.
“There is no place to operate where the fire is,” she said.
That team is led by Incident Commander Kelvin Thompson from the National Forest Service office in Quilcene.
A National Incident Management Organization team from Portland, Ore., has been selected to take over managing the situation from the current team.
The Portland team is one of seven full-time professional fire management teams of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.
The new management team is headed by Incident Commander Bill Hahnenberg, of Grand Junction, Colo.
No timeline for transition to the new fire management team was available Monday afternoon.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
