Fire crews worked through Wednesday night to keep the William Flats Fire on the Colville Indian Reservation from jumping the Columbia River at Lake Roosevelt and moving farther east toward the Spokane Indian Reservation.
Those efforts were successful as of late Thursday when more than 900 firefighters continued to battle the fire, but locals and officials remained concerned that the southeast flank of the fire would cross the Columbia and move toward the town of Hunters, where flakes of ash were falling Thursday evening.
“We understand the peoples’ fears, but we can’t say it’s not going to happen,” said Dana Leavitt, spokesman for the U.S. Fire Service incident type 3 management team.
As of 9 a.m. Thursday, the nearly 35,000-acre fire extended from the Whitestone Lookout down to the banks of the Columbia River and was only 25% contained.