Team Fighting Cold Springs Canyon Fire Could Stay All Week

The Cold Springs Canyon Fire is 188,852 acres with 45% containment as of Sunday night.

Incident Management Team spokesman Don Malone says the biggest challenge is Northeast corner of the fire.

"Where it's steep rocky terrain, so we have some active fire there, but hopefully by the end of the Sunday shift they'll have a really good handle on it and have some hand line around it. That's the area that we have really been focusing on."

He says they will likely be on the scene through most of the week, if not all of it.

Malone says a mill in the fire zone required special attention.

"There were two or three big piles of wood chips that have been there for a long time that have been smoldering. We had some crews and a water tender and a dozer down there pulling that apart to get that wrapped up."

Crews were spending a lot of mopping up in some areas, or patrolling, but around 700-1000 power poles were destroyed requiring a combined effort from utility companies and fire crews.

The Okanogan County Sheriff's Office is still investigating the cause and doing assessments of buildings and structures that may have been lost.