Parkwide Fire Ban Begins Friday At Mount Rainier National Park

MOUNT RAINIER, WA — Mount Rainier National Park is enacting a parkwide fire ban, prohibiting campfires, wood fires, briquettes, fire pits, fire pans and barbecue grills inside the park until further notice. During the ban, visitors may still use portable petroleum-fueled cooking stoves, heating devices and lanterns, as long as they can be turned off.

The enhanced fire restrictions take effect Friday, July 23, and will remain in place until further notice, officials said. Mount Rainier's fire ban comes after a statewide wildfire emergency declaration, increasing drought conditions, and a separate burn ban already in place at Washington State Parks.

"This brings the park in alignment with fire bans on adjacent state and US Forest Service lands," the National Park Service said. "These bans are in place to reduce the risk of human-caused wildland fire area-wide during hot, dry conditions and high fire danger."

Park officials said Rainier's ban also supports broader efforts to reduce the strain on limited firefighting resources, as the nation sits at "Fire Preparedness Level 5," which is the highest designation.

"Several geographic areas are experiencing large, complex wildland fire incidents, which have the potential to exhaust national wildland firefighting resources," officials wrote. "At least 80 percent of the country's incident management teams and wildland firefighting personnel are committed to wildland fire incidents."

The Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon is the largest wildfire currently burning in the United States, nearing 400,000 acres in size. As of Thursday, officials said it was less than 40 percent contained. In Washington, federal funds were approved this week to assist firefighting efforts in Okanogan County, where the Cedar Creek Fire was threatening homes.

While some areas of Western Washington saw trace amounts of rain earlier in the week, measurable rainfall is still nowhere to be seen in the latest forecasts.