WASHINGTON, Aug 18: Big wildfires burning near the central Washington resort town of Chelan were taking a toll on the region’s main economic engines – tourism and the apple industry.
Visitors stayed away and a big fruit warehouse filled with apples was destroyed by the fires, imperiling hundreds of jobs.
Several large fires burning near Chelan have scorched more than 155 square miles, destroyed an estimated 50 homes Friday and Saturday and forced about 1,500 residents to flee.
Scores of homes remain threatened, and mandatory evacuation orders remained in effect for more than 2,700 people in the Chelan area.
The Chelan fires were just some of the many destructive blazes burning throughout the Northwest. In northern Idaho, more than 40 homes were lost near the town of Kamiah, and in Oregon a lightning-sparked blaze on the Malheur National Forest has grown to more than 60 square miles and has destroyed at least 26 homes.
So many fires are burning across the West that the National Interagency Fire Center announced yesterday that 200 active-duty military troops are being called in to help. They will be sent to a fire on Aug. 23.
The blazes near Chelan, about 180 miles east of Seattle, are burning through grass, brush and timber, fire spokeswoman Janet Pierce said. The fires remain uncontained, she said.
“Today our focus is on structure protection,” she said.
The flames come in the midst of the summer tourist season in the scenic town located along Lake Chelan in the Cascade Range.
The fires also threaten apple orchards and packing warehouses in the heart of the state’s apple belt during what has been a summer of drought in the Northwest.
Chelan Fruit lost one of its major fruit-packing warehouses in Chelan to wildfire on Friday. The warehouse contained 1.8 million pounds of apples that were lost and employed about 800 people, said Mac Riggan, director of marketing for the company.
The employees are being sent to Chelan Fruit’s other facilities in the region, Riggan said. “‘Our other plant in Chelan is fully operational,” he said.
Washington is by far the nation’s largest apple producer, and the industry produced more than 140 million cartons of apples last year, of which perhaps 6 million remain in warehouses, Riggan said.(AGENCIES)
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