SOAP LAKE, Wash. – Evacuations were lowered to level 2 Tuesday afternoon for homes north of Soap Lake that were being threatened by wildfires. All other evacuations in the area were lowered to level 1.
Abnormally high winds drove flames toward more populated areas in and around Soap Lake Monday night. Flames continued to travel at rapid speeds throughout the night.
At about 8:30 p.m. Monday night, the Grant County Sheriff’s Office issued a level 3 evacuation warning to homes in the area that were in immediate danger of the wildfire. Those orders impacted roughly 30 people, authorities said Tuesday afternoon.
Grant County officials said the wildfire started at roughly 4:30 p.m. Monday afternoon along HWY 17 North, about 3 miles north of Soap Lake. The mandatory evacuation alert was for homes on the east side of the highway from milepost 81, stretching from north of Soap Lake to south of the Smokiam RV park.
The GCSO sent out a reverse 911 alerted to about 115 phone numbers of people in the area, alerting them to load up their families and pets into a vehicle and leave the area immediately.
Residents on the west side of the highway from Smokiam RV Park to Lake Lenore Dr. were issued a level 2 evacuation warning Monday night.
County officials said police officers began knocking on doors shortly after the evacuations were issued, warning residents to leave the area.
“The police officer came up and he said, ‘We’re giving you guys 15 minutes to evacuate your property, there’s a fire,’ “ said Victoria Dobesh, a Soap Lake resident.
At one point during the night, Dobesh said she was sure that her house was going to burned down because of how close the flames were to her property.
“I lost it,” she said. “I thought for sure … I just lost my house.”
But fire crews worked through the night to contain the flames and keep Dobesh’s and other residents’ homes safe.
Crews said the fire was able to spread quickly because the grass and sagebrush was exceptionally dry. As of Tuesday morning, county officials reported that the fire had burned approximately 2,000 acres and was 50 percent contained. No damaged buildings had been reported.
The cause of the fire was still under investigation Tuesday, authorities said.
The Soap Lake Fire is the beginning of what could be a significant wildfire season in central and eastern Washington, according to a recent report from the National Interagency Fire Center.
“We’ve seen the fire season start earlier and earlier it seems every year,” said fire information officer Jeff Sevigney, who called the early appearance of wildfires this year the “new normal.”