When the California Interagency Incident Management Team 13 arrived in Randle early this month, taking over for another team, there were 43 active fires scattered across the Gifford Pinchot National Forest’s northwestern Cowlitz Valley Ranger District.
Today, there are just three.
Clint Green, operations section chief on the group of fires collectively dubbed the Cowlitz Complex Fire, considers that a win. At least, with the qualifier, “in this circumstance.”
In total, the 723 acres of the fires are 39% contained, and a crew of 265 people were staffing the complex on Friday.
“We’ve made quite a bit of progress,” Green said on Wednesday, standing in the firefighting team’s briefing tent in Randle. “It does feel good, at the end of the day, to know that you made a difference and you’re setting the next team up to be successful.”