Weather helps central Washington fire, but not for long

Smoke in central Washington is so thick schools sent kids home early in the town of Cashmere. They’ll start two hours later Friday.

About 1,000 firefighters are at work trying to contain several blazes near Wenatchee. At least 360 people had to evacuate.

Fire information spokesman Mick Meuller says cooler temperatures are helping to keep humidity levels up. But he doesn’t expect that to last.

“We’re at least out of the phase where where trying to find out how many fires we have and where the fires are to more of a constant firefighting battle," Meuller says. "The other thing that we still have to fight our way through is that this weekend we’re looking at a dry cold front that we can expect on Saturday and Sunday.”

Meuller says that could bring gusts that could kick up the central Washington fires even more.

Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has allowed the use of federal money to help pay for fighting the Poison Fire and the Peavine Fire burning in Chelan County .

On the Web:

Wenatchee Complex Fire updates:

http://inciweb.org/incident/3258/

Wenatchee Complex Fire information:

http://wenatcheecomplexfire.wordpress.com/

Get updates via Twitter:

https://twitter.com/WenatcheeWAFire

Copyright 2012 Northwest News Network

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