Fast moving wildfire burns 600 acres near Gorge Amphitheatre



GEORGE, WA - No one at the Sasquatch Festival expected the show they got this afternoon.

“When I saw the smoke, I thought it was just dust,” says Anna Lau. “Because it was so windy.”

But concert goers soon realized a wildfire was burning close to the Gorge Amphitheatre.

“One of my campmates said it was three miles from our campsite, so everyone got a little worried,” says Benjamin Newton.

The fire started near a popular climbing spot by the Columbia River. Emergency crews immediately evacuated the area, but couldn’t get immediate control of blaze.

“Our resources had a difficult time accessing the fire due to the terrain,” says Kyle Foreman, public information officer for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office. “So with the wind, it was able to grow in size.”

600 acres burned and ten homes nearby were put on notice while the fire burned. But the winds blew the fire and smoke away from the thousands of people camping at Sasquatch.

“If something went terribly wrong and the need arose to evacuate the Gorge Amphitheatre, we have an emergency management plan in place,” Foreman says. “We practice every year in order to evacuate the Gorge.”

That didn’t end up being a concern tonight. But concert goers say emergency crews should have warned them about what was happening nearby.

“I think they should keep everybody in the loop, because the last thing you want to do when you're at a festival is try to hurry up and leave,” says Newton. “You want to make sure you're doing in the right way, the safe way. So I think everyone should be advised what's going on here because it could turn into something that is actually dangerous.”