Firefighters have contained 50 percent of a brush fire that spread across thousands of acres in Eastern Washington on Tuesday, shutting down Interstate-90 and forcing a temporary evacuation of a Columbia River town.
"We made excellent progress yesterday," Randy Sheppard, a spokesman for the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) who's in charge of monitoring the Ryegrass Coulee Fire, said in a phone interview on Wednesday. "The crews have a preliminary line completely around the fire. Today's priority will be mopping down in toward the center and preparing to turn management of the fire to the local agencies as early as Thursday."