High winds fan flames, knock out power and cause damage throughout Tri-Cities

Rich Hempel was coming home Friday evening when he spotted the darker haze coming from behind the homes on South Auburn Place.

Then he heard the canyon near his neighbor's homes was burning. He grabbed his boots to help defend his neighbors' homes from the encroaching flames.

The wind-driven blaze grew from an out of control agricultural fire at a nearby orchard around 7 p.m. and burned about 15 acres of brush in the canyon, said Kennewick Fire Battalion Chief Mikal Barnett.

As neighbors started working by spraying water on lawns and shoveling dirt on the approaching flames, firefighters from Kennewick, Pasco, and Benton County districts 1 and 4 arrived and started work.

They were able to contain the blaze, and firefighters were on the scene until rain moved in and doused the remaining hot spots.

The fire, which left a few power poles damaged, was one of several calls to emergency responders as a storm blew through the area. Sustained wind speeds of up 37 mph and gusts of up to 49 mph were recorded at the Tri-Cities Airport in Pasco, according to the National Weather Service.

The storm reached its height Friday around 7 p.m., knocking down trees and power lines. The weather was responsible for shutting down power to hundreds of homes throughout Benton and Franklin counties. The outages struck the areas around Clearwater Avenue and Vista Way, 27th Avenue and Ely Street in Kennewick and the Sagehill area in Franklin County.

The power outages continued into Saturday morning with about 900 customers losing power in the area near 10th Avenue and Washington Street around 9:30 a.m. Crews were able to restore power within an hour.

Cameron Probert: 509-582-1402; Twitter: @cameroncprobert

This story was originally published April 28, 2018 at 10:38 AM with the headline "High winds fan flames, knock out power and cause damage throughout Tri-Cities."