Cougar Creek Crews Looking to Do Burnout Operations Wednesday

Crews on the Cougar Creek Fire are working hard today to prepare for what could be a very windy Thursday. Information Officer Mike Reichling says they are spending Wednesday doing assessments on potential burning operations.

"Yesterday was a good flying day. We maxed out our helicopters, did more than 80 bucket drops of water. We're going to make that an advantage for us today."

Reichling says they've done a lot of work on the east side of the fire and those lines will be manned throughout the day Wednesday.

"Most importantly, we're going to be putting fire on the ground and it's going to be able to be seen from the Chiwawa Loop area all the way down into Plain. Folks need to know that if there's some pre-fire activity that they see, it's because we are doing that. We're doing it on purpose in order to do burning up to a point where we can contain the fire."

There will be a community briefing on the fire Thursday night at 6:00 p.m. at the Chelan County Fire District #8 Station on Entiat Way in Entiat. The meeting will also be live streamed on the fire information Facebook page.