Three small fires around Geiger area human-caused
This fire on Aug. 26 along Interstate 90 near the Geiger exit had traffic backed up for several miles as emergency crews shut down a lane to battle the blaze. It was one of three fires in two days that had human origin investigators report.
A series of small fires along Interstate 90 over a two-day span last week were quickly extinguished, but have investigators working additional hours to try to find an exact cause.
"They haven't released the cause yet," Washington State Department of Natural Resources spokesman, Guy Gifford said. One thing Gifford did say was each fire was man-made.
The fires each have a name, starting with the 9.5 acre Rowan-Geiger blaze Aug. 27. A day earlier, two blazes were ignited in close proximity to each other and included the 2.5 acre I-90, Exit 270 fire as well as one 3 acres in size and known as the Airport Exit Fire.
The Exit 270 fire snarled traffic on the freeway on Wednesday as the roadway was reduced to one lane to accommodate emergency vehicles.
Don Crawford, Spokane County Fire District 3 deputy chief, confirmed Gifford's report and hinted that arson could have been a more exact cause. "That one started quite a bit away from the freeway, which kind of makes you scratch your head," Crawford said.
Fire District 10 fought the I-90, Exit 270 fire on the southeast side of the freeway near Westside Motorsports, Crawford said.
Later Wednesday, the Airport Exit fire took off across I-90 from the earlier blaze and burned to Geiger Boulevard. It was about 300 yards long and was contained to land along the interstate.
Investigators said this fire had three separate ignition points, but by the time units responded, the three had combined into one," Crawford said. DNR has a team that looks at causes of all wild-land fires, he added.
Thursday's Rowan-Geiger fire burned near the Washington State Patrol headquarters. "That one was distinctly human caused," Crawford said.
A Fire District 3 employee was headed home and used the Geiger exit. "Boom, he runs into five individual starts," Crawford said. There was no one around so the perpetrators of this apparent arson fire must have just left the scene.
After a busy midweek, Crawford said the last few days have been quiet, but, "We thought Saturday was going to be a barn-burner," with the red flag warning that came ahead of a passing cold front that unleashed gusts up to 70 miles-per-hour and blinding dust across large parts of the Inland Northwest,
"We just dodged another bullet," he said.
Fire District 3 has responded to two notable fires so far this season on the West Plains, one at Fish Lake in June and two weeks ago on Depot Springs Road.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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