While a brush fire scorched roughly 300 acres Tuesday afternoon, threatening at least seven homes on the 500 block of Lucas Road, a nearby tractor-trailer fire on Interstate 82 closed part of the highway for hours and backed up traffic for several miles.
The cause of the brush fire — which was still burning late Tuesday — is under investigation, said Michael Daniels, deputy to the garrison commander at the Yakima Training Center. The fire burned on unincorporated Yakima County land about 2 miles south of the training center.
About 50 personnel from the training center and the Selah, Yakima, West Valley, East Valley, Nile and Naches fire departments responded to the blaze. A large military helicopter dunked a 2,000-gallon bucket into the nearby North Elton Pond and strafed the flames and surrounding vegetation with water at least 10 times. A column of black smoke could be seen for miles.