RSSFirefighters watching wind at Cold Springs fire
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Crews continue making significant gains on the Cold Springs Fire southeast of Mount Adams and expect to have it fully contained by Aug. 1.
By Tuesday, 85 percent of the blaze was contained, and crews were working to beef up fire breaks as wide as 300 feet, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Joe Fields.
Simply getting a fire break around the blaze isn't enough given the amount of fuels, he said.
"The emphasis is unburned material inside that line that may smolder up again," he said. "A wind could kick up and it could easily go beyond our fire line and we'd be back to square (one) again."
Firefighters have made steady progress in getting fire lines around the lightning-caused blaze that was reported on July 12. It has blackened more than 7,980 acres about 11 miles northeast of Trout Lake. By Monday, crews had roughly 75 percent of the blaze contained.
Heavy fuels from slash piles left by logging have made suppression difficult for firefighters and are allowing the fire to continue burning within fire lines.
Meanwhile, crews are now working on two smaller fires that have ignited near the mountain, one to the north and the other to the east.
It's not clear how the fires, which were discovered Sunday, started. The Sheep Lake fire is burning on less than an acre on the north side of Mount Adams while the Big Lava Fire just east of the mountain has now grown from about 5 acres to roughly 15 acres.
The plan todayis to drench the Big Lava Fire with water from six engines and two tenders and turn it back over to local fire crews, Fields said.
There are now 1,051 firefighters from federal, state and tribal agencies battling the large blaze that's burning in lodgepole and subalpine fir, much of it bug-killed timber.
It's caused road, trailhead and camping area closures throughout the Mount Adams area. It's not clear when those areas will be reopened.
* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.
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