Six fires pop up across Puget Sound in wake of record-setting weather
Mar 19, 2019, 4:39 PM
(Bellevue Fire)
(Bellevue Fire)
In the midst of breaking the record for the hottest ever March day in Seattle, the Puget Sound region saw a handful of fires hit as the afternoon commute kicked off.
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By 4 p.m. Tuesday, upwards of six separate fires had popped up in a variety of locations.
The biggest blaze of the day is an 80-acre brush fire in Mossyrock, that authorities were alerted to around 2 p.m. Residents in the area are being evacuated, as crews shut down Swofford Road at Mossyrock Road East.
Pierce County firefighters began battling a three-acre brush fire in the 2300 block of 276th Street East in Spanaway around 3 p.m. Meanwhile in Duvall, responders were on the scene of a small brush fire on SR 203.
Roughly 20 minutes later, a brush fire hit the 3200 block of 118th Avenue Southeast near the Mercer Slough in Bellevue. Around that same time, crews in Seattle responded to a fire near the I-5 off-ramps to Madison and James Street (no damage was reported to the overpass).
Not long after that, an RV down on 1st Ave South near South Fidalgo Street became fully engulfed in flames, briefly blocking all lanes on both streets.
Beyond record-setting temperatures, KIRO 7 Meteorologist Morgan Palmer theorizes that the outbreak of fires could largely be due to a notable lack of rainfall in March.
“Seattle has only had about half the normal March precipitation (1.16 inches versus 2.23 inches average to date),” said Palmer. “Last March was even slightly drier to this date. For the year to date, we’re at 9.61 inches versus the average of 11.30 inches.”
For full updates on traffic as these fires play out, check out MyNorthwest’s traffic page here.
