Aircraft help battle wildfire at Hanford Reach

Up there in the sky, across the river — is it a jet? A helicopter? An airplane?

For Hanford and Franklin County firefighters, it was all three this week, as they battled a brush fire on the Hanford Reach National Monument.

Several aircraft responded to help firefighters, including a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 air tanker that swooped down to drop red fire retardant.

Videos posted to the Facebook pages of Franklin County Fire District 4 and the Hanford Fire Department also show at least three propeller-driven planes and a helicopter dumping water to fight the flames.

Franklin County wrote on its page that the fire likely started because of static sparking from high-voltage lines that cross the Hanford reservation.

“This only happens when the humidity, temperature and air movement are just perfect,” officials said on Facebook.

District officials believe the fire started about the time the solar eclipse reached its peak. The fire burned several hundred acres but no serious damage was reported.

This story was originally published August 22, 2017 at 6:59 PM with the headline "Aircraft help battle wildfire at Hanford Reach."