A fast-moving wildfire has erupted near the small community of Vantage in Central Washington, prompting urgent go-now evacuation orders as flames raced across the dry landscape. The blaze, which officials are calling the Ryegrass Coulee Fire, broke out yesterday evening and spread through roughly 800 acres within a matter of hours, destroying at least one structure as crews scrambled to keep it from reaching more homes.
The fire is burning on the west side of the Columbia River, near the town of Vantage. According to videos sent in by Fox 13 viewers that captured the flames, the fire was moving on the east side of the Vantage Bridge, a stretch where the interstate winds down toward the river and the surrounding grasslands.
As the fire spread, emergency managers first issued the most urgent evacuation level for the areas most at risk, placing people under Level 3 go-now orders that told them to leave immediately. Those orders have since been reduced to Level 2, a warning to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. At the height of the emergency, Interstate 90 was closed in both directions near exit 115, close to the line between Kittitas and Grant counties.
According to the state fire marshal, the Ryegrass Coulee Fire is burning through grass, brush and timber, the kind of light, dry fuel that allows a fire to move quickly. Officials said the flames were threatening homes, power infrastructure and other structures in the community of Vantage, raising concern for both residents and the electrical grid in the area.
By Thursday morning the fire was about 10 percent contained. Investigators said the blaze was human-caused but had not released any other details about how it started. Officials warned anyone in the area to watch for downed power lines, and cautioned that some spots could be left in the dark for quite a while. The fire is one of several straining firefighting efforts across Central and Eastern Washington, a region that has been baking under hot, dry conditions and that remains on edge through the height of wildfire season.
The weather was working against the firefighters. Winds were still gusty into the night, with gusts around thirty miles an hour reported in the Ellensburg and Vantage area, where the interstate funnels the wind through a winding corridor down to the river. Daytime temperatures had climbed into the upper eighties and low nineties across Central and Eastern Washington, under a red flag warning for extreme fire danger.
Forecasters cautioned that the breezy, warm and dry pattern was likely to keep fire risk elevated in the coming days, with winds expected to pick up again and fan concerns overnight. For now, officials urged residents in and around Vantage to heed the evacuation orders and stay clear of the fire zone as crews worked to get ahead of the fast-moving flames.