Fire officials said 160,000 of the 190,000 acres that had burned were on the Hanford site. That included land on the west side of Hanford that makes up more than a third of the new national monument. It has been left largely undisturbed since the 1940s, when it was fenced off as a wide security buffer around Hanford. There were resources on it from the moment it occurred. However, firefighters tried to stay on roads and trails where vegetation was already destroyed and used wildland fire trucks, which included some smaller and lighter vehicles.
Sagebrush takes decades to regenerate, and bare land can easily be overtaken by noxious weeds.
Elsewhere at Hanford, firefighters were attacking the fire more aggressively. Bulldozers and farm disk harrows were used to dig the fire line down to bare earth. Three air tankers dropped retardant, although it was a slow process. East Wenatchee and Redmond, Ore., were the closest places to pick up a new load of the chemical after a drop. Eight helicopters also were available, either to survey the fire or to drop water scooped out of the Columbia River.