Highway remains closed as Sourdough Fire creeps toward town, power-generating plant
A major cross-state highway remained closed Monday as a slow-moving wildfire on Sourdough Mountain in Whatcom County continues to creep toward the Diablo Dam, a Seattle City Light power plant and a village of homes for its workers, state and federal officials said.
“The fire hasn’t gone all the way down to those structures. We still want to treat them as if they are at risk,” said Mark Enty, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center team that’s now managing firefighting operations.
State Highway 20 remains closed indefinitely between Newhalem and Rainy Pass, the Washington State Department of Transportation said Monday.
“Cross-state travel is possible using U.S. Highway 2, Interstate 90 and U.S. Highway 12,” WSDOT tweeted Monday.
Highway 20, also called the North Cascades Highway, is the northernmost pass connecting eastern and western Washington. It’s closed for the safety of firefighters who are using the road to move equipment, Enty told The Bellingham Herald.
“It’s really hard to know when the road can be shared,” he said in an interview.
Size of the fire was estimated at 1,440 acres with 0% containment, down from almost 3,000 acres first reported over the weekend because of more accurate fire mapping, Enty said.
Firefighters are protecting the Whatcom County town of Diablo, the power-generating facilities and the campus of the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, he said.
Helicopters conducting water drops are mostly what’s helping to slow the fire’s spread, he said.
Earlier, people flying drones in the area were hampering those efforts, as planes and helicopters cannot fly in the area if drones are present, experts said.
More than 330 firefighters and support personnel are helping with the fire, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Cooler temperatures and higher humidity Monday also were expected to help the firefighting effort, and thunderstorms were also in the forecast, along with erratic winds and possibly dry lightning.
A lightning strike sparked the fire on July 29 in remote eastern Whatcom County.
This story was originally published August 7, 2023 at 12:21 PM.
