SEQUIM — Firefighters spent several hours and more than 3,600 gallons of water on knocking down a relatively small brush fire Thursday morning that was “probably human-caused,” Clallam County Fire District 3 Lt. Bob Rhoads said Thursday afternoon.
No one was injured, and no structures were threatened in the blaze, which began around 6:30 a.m. off Johnson Creek Road above Happy Valley.
Thursday’s wildland fire was the seventh fire in as many days in the fire district, which extends from the Jefferson County line west to just east of Deer Park Road.
Rhoads said woods and fields of the North Olympic Peninsula are “tinder dry” going into Independence Day weekend.
Red-flag warning
Also on Thursday, the National Weather Service issued a red-flag warning of hot, dry and unstable weather conditions for the entire Peninsula, which will be in effect today through Sunday.
The Clallam County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the cause of the Johnson Creek fire, which drew engines from Clallam District 3 and the U.S. Forest Service, a state Department of Natural Resources hand crew and a dozen District 3 firefighters, Rhoads said.
When engines arrived shortly after 6:30 a.m., the flames were 4 to 6 feet high, he said. Crews kept the fire to a 75-by-75-foot area, but it took them until nearly noon to extinguish it.
The fire started near a spur road, Rhoads said, so it may have been ignited by a cigarette or spark from a passing car.
The blaze was “deep-seated,” he added, since it started in a logging-slash pile and spread into deep brush. That, coupled with steep terrain, made the fire difficult to put out.
Clallam District 3 Capt. Darrel Sharp, incident commander at Thursday’s blaze, noted that amid current conditions, more serious fires can start easily.
“People need to be very careful with anything that might ignite a fire in this very dry vegetation,” Sharp said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
