OLYMPIC NATIONAL FOREST — Wind fanned a 3-acre fire believed to be caused by an abandoned campfire into a 50-acre ground blaze in the Duckabush Trail area west of Brinnon late this afternoon.
A smoke plume from the fire could be seen from across Puget Sound in Seattle.
Fire managers ordered six more crews and a helicopter after the blaze expanded, said Donna Nemeth, forest service spokeswoman.
The added crews were to work with the Entiat Interagency Hot Shot Crew from the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, which arrived at the fire early Saturday, Nemeth said.
This “self-contained crew of 20 people who are very skilled in what they do” are using a “full suppression tactic” to extinguish the fire, she said.
The fire is a ground blaze which has not moved into the trees, Nemeth said.
Fire fighters are trying to contain it by cutting a fire line around the perimeter of the blaze, digging down to the bare dirt so that the fire has no fuel to expand.
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EARLIER STORY
OLYMPIC NATIONAL FOREST — A creeping brush fire believed to be caused by an abandoned campfire has prompted the closure of the Duckabush Trail, which is near Quilcene.
The fire, located about five miles up the trail, began Thursday and had covered about 3 acres by mid-afternoon today, said Donna Nemeth, forest service spokesman.
She said the blaze was thought to be growing.
“The smoke was increasing,” Nemeth, who was not at the fire, said she was told, “which means it’s becoming more active.”
The blaze has been dubbed the Big Hump Fire because it is at “a point in the trail where people say you are over the big hump,” Nemeth said.
Firefighters are at the fire, which is feeding off detritus on the forest floor, attempting to keep it out of the trees, she said.
The trail was closed to the boundary with Olympic National Park because of the wildfire.
Fire managers from Olympic National Forest have said that the fire is believed to have been caused by an abandoned campfire.
