Washington road closures

WSDOT lists the state highways that are closed. Controlling access on that mountain stretch of WA20 is easy. There aren't any alternatives, and few private land holdings.

US97 is a through highway to Canada.

Most home access is on county roads. That access is the responsibility of the county sheriff. InciWeb is a good source of fire information, including perimeters, and coordinating agencies. Some fires also have facebook pages.

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/state/49/

There are constant changes in open/closed status because people that were evacuated want to get back in to get stuff or check on lives stock.

I would hope that the status on WADOT would be "closed" on those roads so that people that don't belong there, stay away.

Hwy 20 west of Rainy Pass is closed... and it's not going to open anytime soon. The Methow Valley(which is 20 miles EAST of Rainy Pass on hwy 20) is dealing with fires of it's own. They don't need anyone coming in there from the west.

Here's the info I just found on the WEST side of Rainy Pass... campground closures are listed here, too.
http://www.skagitbreaking.com/featured-story/august-23rd-upper-skagit-complex-fire-update/

Clicky

Current (Sat afternoon) WSDOT travel alerts are for SR20, SR151, SR21, and US395 (north end). Except for the Newhalem closure these are all around Republic. Closures on US97 seem to come and go, possibly because the Okanogan portion is in an open settled valley with rapidly moving grass fires.

97 is also closed between Omak and Tonasket

That makes 3 for you! plus #20 makes 4 out of ...how many??

http://wsdot.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Viewer/index.html?appid=9b2cc9dd0d69428093cd8765cd17d5a8
WSDOT has a zoomable map of road closures. It includes the fire perimeters. Most of the fires are in the north central part of the state.

The fire closing WA20 in the west, along with the NP campgrounds is Goodell, near park headquarters and Seattle Light facilities at Newhalem.

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/photos/WANCP/2015-08-19-2052-Goodell/picts/2015_08_21-15.44.04.859-CDT.pdf

From the map it looks like the fire is in the narrow canyon between Newhalem (and power plant) and the Gorge dam.

cruiserjs wrote:
"2 and 90 are the only highway open at this time."
Come on folks - MANy highways in WA are OPEN!!

Nit picking are we??

97 is also closed between Omak and Tonasket.

"2 and 90 are the only highway open at this time."
Come on folks - MANy highways in WA are OPEN!!

There more than 3 highways in the state. 1 across the Cascades is closed.

Not only is hwy 20 closed as you said... but all the campgrounds (State park, too) in the Methow Valley were evacuated WED around 4pm. No notice. 3 firefighters are dead and both Twisp and Winthrop were evacuated.

Both Washington and Oregon are tinder dry, ready to go up in smoke... I'm not kidding.
Just pray for some rain to fall - gently. We will have mudslides if too much rain comes.... but the rain can't come soon enough.

We were in WASHINGTON for 7 weeks, never seen it so dry. Got back home to Nebraska and never seen it so green and lush. Praying for all of the western states