Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Northwest’s largest forest fire burning near Mt. Adams is now five percent contained. The Cold Springs Fire has burned more than 7000 acres since taking off on Sunday.

Elsewhere around the region, firefighters are getting a bit of a breather. Correspondent Austin Jenkins has this regional fire round-up.

Improved weather conditions have allowed firefighters to contain five Northwest fires – one in Idaho and four in Washington - including the Spokane Valley View Fire which destroyed 13 homes.

The major focus now is the Cold Springs Fire in Southwest Washington. More than 500 firefighters are on the scene – so far no buildings have burned.

Ron DeHart is with the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. He says currently there are no red flag warnings in the Northwest region, but....

Ron DeHart: “We’re sort of holding our breath, there is a call for some potential thunderstorms this weekend in some parts of the region – we’ll have to see how that goes. But that certainly does put a lot of people on alert.”

So far this year, there’ve been fewer fires, but more acres burned nationally than last year. Experts are planning for a long fire season.