I was born in Wenatchee, Washington, almost fifty-one years ago, It's a small, arid, semi-desert valley that regularly has summer time brush fires in and around the vicinity. Some years they're not so bad and/or not so close, and other years my hometown gets what happened last night:
A grass fire fueled by hot, dry and windy conditions quickly grew out of control in central Washington Sunday night, consuming homes and businesses and forcing dozens of evacuations as it threatened to burn through additional structures.
The so-called Sleepy Hollow fire started outside of Wenatchee, Washington, Sunday afternoon, but winds drove the flames directly toward Wenatchee, creating a nightmarish situation for firefighters who struggled to bring the fire under control, KOMO News reports. More than three thousand acres have burned in the inferno.
No serious injuries have been reported.
Due to an ongoing heat wave in the Northwest, temperatures in Wenatchee were still in the 90's as of midnight local time, according to weather.com senior meteorologist Jonathan Erdman....
As a result, the fire had reached homes and businesses within hours. According to the Wenatchee World, the first homes burned after 8 p.m. local time. A total of twenty-four structures have been destroyed by the blaze, officials confirmed Monday morning.
The flames also spread to businesses, burning through Michelsen Packaging, Northern Wholseale, Inc. and the Bluebird fruit warehouse, the Wenatchee World reports. Propane and other chemical tanks at the businesses caught fire and exploded, sending a plume of flames into the night sky....
Multiple streets in Wenatchee were evacuated as flames threatened additional buildings....
According to the Chelan County Emergency Management office, 155 people have checked into a Red Cross shelter at the local high school as of early Monday morning. At least 1,000 people left their homes, the Associated Press reported.
"We've got hundreds of homes under evacuation notices," said Rich Magnussen in the AP report. He's a spokesperson for the Chelan County Emergency Management office.
I just happened to be in town visiting my father, who is in the hospital with possible spinal meningitis, and was staying at his retirement apartment. The facility (Colonial Vista Independent Living) has a sky bridge from which the city skyline facing to the northwest yesterday evening was a spectacular and hellish pyre of wind-driven flames. The kind of sight that has you exclaiming "Oh, my God" (as I did) before you even realize you're saying it and wondering in the back of your mind if the whole city might wind up having to be evacuated,
That hasn't happened thus far, and a brief, light morning rain has certainly helped limitedly cool temperatures here. But the latest reports I've heard is that the fires are not contained and Chelan County isn't willing to even put a number to it at this point,
No, my hometown won't go completely up in smoke, But this is the first time, at least to my recollection, that Wenatchee has made the national news since the 1974 Appleyard explosion. Next on the city's to-do list: Finding better ways of making national headlines,
Exit thought: Your prayers for my dad's full recovery would be very much appreciated.
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