Douglas County officials say the Chelan Hills wildfire that started early July 4th morning is now 50 percent contained and spans about 9,700 acres.
They say the fire is not out, but it is not currently spreading any further.
Douglas County Sheriff Tyler Caille tells us one person died trying to escape the fire in their car on McNeil Canyon Road. That person has not been identified.
Caille gave KIRO 7 a tour of the severe fire damage along the McNeil Canyon area. We saw homes burnt down to their foundations, cars torched, and power poles that looked like campfire logs.
“There was just so much smoke, dust, and erratic fire behavior, they couldn’t make an attack on the fire,” Caille said.
He tells us two firefighting crews almost didn’t make it out alive because the fire was burning so hot.
Caille says the first crew’s truck tires popped because of the heat, telling us their quick thinking is what got them out.
“It became so hot their tires started to pop and rather than drive down the road with popped tires, they backed the truck in and they ran,” Caille said.
He says a second crew was forced to blindly drive through the smoke and fire after the heat from the flames blew out their windows.
“The fire did burn over them, the truck stayed running, the driver of that apparatus held the wheel straight and just drove until they got out and hit a safe spot,” Caille said.
Around 20 homes are burned to the ground according to fire crews.
Jacky Hart and her husband live on a property off Spring Canyon Road. Her daughter, Krista Postelwait, and her husband and two young kids, also live in a seperate house on the same property.
Hart says one home is gone, another is too damaged to come back to, and her husband’s garage is torched.
“We didn’t have insurance, so rebuilding is gonna be tough, we are just at a loss right now,” Hart said.
She tells us this is the fourth time their family’s homes have burned down over the past 26 years. Hart says the previous three times were electrical fires.
“It’s too many times at this point, we just need somewhere else to be, at this point it’s cleaning up and selling I can’t do it again,” Hart said.
She and her daughter both have verified GoFundMe accounts to try to recover from the losses.
If you would like to help them out, you can find those here:
Help Jacky and Mel rebuild after the fire
Helping the Postelwait family rebuild
Postelwait says they have received an outpouring of clothing donations and don’t need those, but would appreciate money, giftcards, or toys for the two kids.
Tonight the Chelan Eagles Lodge is also helping out the family by giving them the proceeds from their weekly bingo night.
The pair were emotional as they talked about how grateful they are to the community for helping them over the pat few days.
Caille says the next steps for their crews are to bring out the cadaver dogs and search crews to look for any remaining victims.
He says there are no current reports of any missing people in the area, but they want to be extra sure everyone is okay because a lot of people ignored the evacuation order and stayed behind when the fire rolled through.
“We know people stayed behind, even though we haven’t had any people saying they can’t reach their loved one or friend, it still leaves that question of ‘do we have people out here that fell victim to the fire’,” Caille said.
Those efforts began Wednesday morning. He says they will continue through at least Friday since the area that needs to be searched is so large and has dozens of small structures someone could’ve tried to take cover in.
Authorities say McNeil Canyon Road will be closed will they put out new hotspots, replace broken powerlines, and cut down any trees that may be in danger of falling on someone.
There are currently manned roadblocks on the road to prevent everyone except homeowners from going into the area, both to prevent looters and curious onlookers.
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