The Range 12 fire was started on July 30, 2016 (

local time Local time is the time observed in a specific locality. There is no canonical definition. Originally it was mean solar time, but since the introduction of time zones it is generally the time as determined by the time zone in effect, with daylight s ...

) in

eastern Washington Eastern Washington is the region of the U.S. state of Washington located east of the Cascade Range. It contains the city of Spokane (the second largest city in the state), the Tri-Cities, the Columbia River and the Grand Coulee Dam, the Hanfor ...

at the

Yakima Training Center The Yakima Training Center (YTC) is a United States Army training center, used for maneuver training, Land Warrior system testing and as a live fire exercise area. It is located in the south central portion of the U.S. state of Washington, bounde ...

east of

Yakima, Washington Yakima ( or ) is a city in and the county seat of Yakima County, Washington, and the state's 11th-largest city by population. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 96,968 and a metropolitan population of 256,728. The uninco ...

near

Moxee, Washington Moxee is a small suburban community southeast of Yakima, Washington. Yakima and Moxee are both north of the Yakama Indian Reservation in Yakima County, Washington, United States. The population of Moxee was 4,326 at the 2020 census. According t ...

. It quickly grew to over to cover parts of

Yakima County Yakima County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 256,728. The county seat and largest city is Yakima. The county was formed out of Ferguson County in January 1865 and is named for the Yakama t ...

and Benton County. The fire was the third in recent years to affect the area surrounding the

Hanford Reach National Monument The Hanford Reach National Monument is a national monument in the U.S. state of Washington. It was created in 2000, mostly from the former security buffer surrounding the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The area has been untouched by development or ...

and the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve near

Rattlesnake Ridge Rattlesnake Ridge, known as daʔšədabš to the Snoqualmie people, is the ridge of Rattlesnake Mountain located south of North Bend, Washington, United States. The western end is near the intersection of State Route 18 and I-90 in Snoqualmie, W ...

. The fire was eventually contained through the use of

controlled burn A controlled or prescribed burn, also known as hazard reduction burning, backfire, swailing, or a burn-off, is a fire set intentionally for purposes of forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. A control ...

s on Rattlesnake Mountain in Benton County due to concerns that the fire was getting too close to the

Hanford Nuclear Reservation The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County, Washington, Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. The site h ...

, which had recently been compared to the

Fukushima nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...

Newsweek magazine ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

earlier in 2016. A lawsuit was filed by ranchers in the area due to loss of property, but was dismissed due to questions of jurisdiction. Even though there were no findings from the ''Anderson v. United States of America'' case, the dismissal document from May 21, 2019, points to a cause for the fire:

''The Army training unit continued to engage in live fire training exercises through the afternoon on July 30, 2016. At approximately 4:40 p.m., one of the Army training unit's soldier's fired a machine gun at a target using tracer rounds. SJF ¶ 74. One of the tracer rounds ricocheted from the target area and landed on some brush, which started a brush fire. Id. The fire spread beyond the YTC and onto Plaintiffs' rangeland properties, causing property damage to Plaintiffs' cattle businesses.''

References

Other sources

Remote Sensing (journal) ''Remote Sensing'' is a semimonthly peer-reviewed open access academic journal focusing on research pertaining to remote sensing and other disciplines of geography. It was established in 2009 and is published by MDPI. The founding editor-in-chief ...

** ** Research about using satellite imagery to track fires on the ground. Much of their research was about the Range 12 fire. *

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

** — research about potential rare (and possibly endangered) species near the

Hanford Site The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. The site has been known by many names, including SiteW a ...

that may have been impacted by the Range 12 fire. *

KIMA-TV KIMA-TV (channel 29) is a television station in Yakima, Washington, United States, affiliated with CBS and The CW Plus. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside low-power, Class A Univision affiliate KUNW-CD (channel 2). Both stations ...

—

** ** This citation contains helpful pictures and a map, and points out that the fire started at the

. *

KEPR-TV KEPR-TV (channel 19) is a television station licensed to Pasco, Washington, United States, serving the Tri-Cities area as an affiliate of CBS and The CW Plus. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios on West Lewis Street ( ...

** ** Link to map provided by

on August 1, when the fire was still out of control north of

Sunnyside, Washington Sunnyside is a city in Yakima County, Washington, United States. The population was 16,375 at the 2020 census. History Up through the early portion of the 19th century, the portion of the Yakima Valley where Sunnyside is now located was inhabit ...

Tri-City Herald The ''Tri-City Herald'' is a daily newspaper based in Kennewick, Washington, United States. Owned by The McClatchy Company, the newspaper serves southeastern Washington state, including the three cities of Kennewick, Pasco and Richland (which ...

** ** Story about the lawsuit filed a couple of years after the fire. *

WBUR-FM WBUR-FM (90.9 FM) is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by Boston University. It is the largest of three NPR member stations in Boston, along with WGBH and WUMB-FM and produces several nationally distributed programs ...

** *

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

** ** Quote from the book: "''In the summer of 2016, numerous large wildfires threatened to spread across the Hanford Reservation. Most concerning was the Range 12 fire that spread from Grant and Yakima Counties into Benton County, where the sprawling nuclear site is located. The fire threatened to summit Rattlesnake Mountain and spread into the Hanford Nuclear Site itself.''" *

Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington st ...

** *

Yakima Herald-Republic The ''Yakima Herald-Republic'' is a newspaper published in Yakima, Washington, and distributed throughout Yakima, Kittitas and Klickitat counties as well as northwest Benton County. It is Washington state's seventh-largest daily newspaper. The ne ...

- July 30, 2016 ** {{Washington wildfires Wildfires in Washington (state) 2016 Washington (state) wildfires