Washington Fire Burns Homes to the Ground

Residents in Wenatchee, Washington, returned to their burned homes Monday evening to survey the damage after a massive wildfire reduced entire streets of houses to smoldering ash.
"These were all really nice homes," Wenatchee resident Joan Mullene, whose home survived, told the Associated Press. "It's really devastating."
As many as 24 to 28 houses have been burned in the 4,000-acre Sleepy Hollow fire. The wildfire started in brush outside of Wenatchee Sunday afternoon, but winds drove the flames directly toward Wenatchee, creating a nightmarish situation for firefighters who struggled in brutal heat to bring the fire under control, KOMO News reports. 
Three firefighters suffered what the AP described as minor injuries, but no residents have been hurt.
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    Due to an ongoing heat wave in the Northwest, temperatures in Wenatchee were still in the 90's as of midnight local time, according to weather.com meteorologist Jonathan Erdman.
    "Light surface winds eventually shifted northwesterly up to 15 mph Sunday evening into the overnight hours," said Erdman. "Showers moved over Wenatchee, but only produced a trace of rain, given the dry air in place."
    As a result, the fire had reached homes and businesses within hours. According to the Wenatchee World, the first homes burned after 8 p.m. local time. 
    The flames also spread to businesses, burning through Michelsen Packaging, Northern Wholseale Inc. and the Bluebird fruit warehouse, the Wenatchee World reports. Monday morning, Chelan County Emergency Management alerted residents to shelter in place because of an ammonia leak. Officials began warning citizens as early as midnight Sunday that the leak may happen.
    Multiple streets in Wenatchee were evacuated as flames threatened additional buildings. But on Monday night, citizens were allowed back into some areas, where they found nothing but the charred remains of their lives.
    Tom Bryant, a resident who had to leave his home at a moment's notice Sunday night as the flames quickly advanced, returned home a day later and saw his vintage Shelby Mustang GT 500 sports car completely destroyed and buried in ash.
    "It hurts, but it's just stuff," he told the AP while his wife looked for a missing cat.
    Diane Reed and her two daughters returned to the plot of land where their house once stood and found what she called a "war zone," the Seattle Times reported.
    “Was this where the closet was?” said Reed's 13-year-old daughter, Erin, according to the Seattle Times. “This is where I grew up.”
    Most of Chelan County is mired in moderate drought, as of the last release of the U.S. Drought Monitor, creating abnormally dry conditions. Those conditions are only amplified by the ongoing extreme heatwave in the Northwest.
    According to Erdman, temperatures soared to 109 degrees at Wenatchee's airport Sunday.
    "That's an all-time record for June, and just one degree shy of the city's all-time record set on July 17-18, 1941," said Erdman.
    Wenatchee, Washington, is located more than 100 miles east of Seattle in the central part of the state and is home to more than 30,000 people.
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    Sleepy Hollow Fire Update: Residents Return To Charred Homes in Wenatchee, Washington | The Weather Channel