Firefighters changed their tactics in fighting the Paradise Fire on Tuesday after the blaze reached Bob Creek.
The total area burned by the blaze in the Queets River Valley in southwestern Olympic National Park reached 2,392 acres by Tuesday morning. It was started by lightning May 17.
Bob Creek is the western landmark established in June by fire managers that would trigger a more active fire-suppression strategy and an additional trail closure.
A Monday evening flight over the fire showed a narrow finger of the fire, covering about 100 acres, had reached Bob Creek, said Koshare Eagle, spokeswoman for the team managing the fire.
In response to the fire’s movement to the west, on Tuesday afternoon, the Queets River Trail was closed at Spruce Bottom.
Previously, the closure was at Bob Creek, about 2 miles west of the ignition point, after the fire was discovered in June.
There is no immediate danger of the fire crossing the creek, but it is a point at which fire managers deemed it an appropriate place to increase their efforts to prevent the fire from moving into timber managed by the state Department of Natural Resources, private timber or structures.
The fire is burning about 11 miles inside Olympic National Park, far from habitation or commercial timber, and the primary effort is to keep the fire inside the park boundaries and not affect other areas, Eagle said.
Huge centuries-old trees with fire burning in canopies more than 60 feet above the ground, deep duff where the fire can burn underground and extremely steep terrain have made traditional ground firefighting tactics impossible, according to fire managers.
Major fires in rain forests are extremely rare, and fire managers are learning new tactics, Eagle said.
New tactics
Helicopters were scheduled Tuesday to drop bucketloads of water onto the fire’s western flank to slow or halt the fire’s western progression, she said.
The water was not dropped into the fire itself, as traditional firefighting tactics dictate, because early attempts to slow the fire on the eastern flanks showed that the water drops were not able to penetrate the thick rain forest canopy, Eagle said.
Instead, the water will be dropped into the forest ahead of the fire, in areas with thinner canopy, to raise the moisture levels and reduce the fire’s ability to move through the dry forest, she said.
Incident commanders were to fly into the area to develop further suppression options, and firefighters were scouting sites for a portable water tank to aid further suppression.
Kloochman Rock Lookout, the site of a former fire watch tower just west of Bob Creek, will continue to be staffed as a critical observation site.
Initial attack crews continued to patrol the western side of the national park and are available to fight any new fires should they occur.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
