Six more North Olympic Peninsula residents left Thursday to battle North-Central Washington wildfires.
Three of the six are West End firefighters; the other three are “fallers” from Jefferson County.
Fallers cut down trees and snags likely to catch fire.
They join 40 other area residents assigned to fight fires in the Twisp area earlier this week.
Elite Hot Shot firefighters from New Mexico, California and Montana are also among the more than 1,000 firefighters battling the Thirty Mile Fire and Libby South Fire, both in Okanogan County, and the Dam Tower Fire near Grand Coulee Dam.
Hot Shot teams are considered elite firefighters with years of experience and training, called in to tackle the most unpredictable and hazardous of fires.
North Olympic Peninsula residents include 19 Olympic National Park firefighters, 20 state Department of Natural Resources, three fallers, three Olympic National Park helitechs and one Olympic National Forest fire management officer.
In addition, 40 minimum-security inmates from the Olympic Corrections Center in the Clearwater area south of Forks have been assigned mop-up work at one of the fires.
Full details appear in the Friday-Saturday edition of the Peninsula Daily News. Click onto “Subscribe” to have your PDN delivered to your home or office.