Little Giant FirePlain, Washington

Little Giant Fire

August 16, 2026 · Morning report · Plain, Washington

Data captured Aug 16, 8:11 AM PDT · unofficial & automated — in an emergency use Watch Duty and official alerts, not this page

This is an archived report from August 16, 2026 · Morning. Read the latest brief →

The Bennetts' house remains inside the Little Giant Level 1 "Get Ready" zone, unchanged since yesterday's 3:00–3:03 PM PDT redraw — no new zone edits this run. The fire grew to 132,351 acres (+4,266) at flat 10% containment, and the mapped perimeter, now current as of Aug 15, 4:57 PM PDT, sits 7.3 mi N, 0.8 mi closer than last night. A new unverified heat cluster appeared 6.4 mi N — the closest flagged yet — while last night's flagged cluster at 7.9 mi NNE logged a second day and is no longer unverified; winds stay mostly westerly away from Plain except a light north breeze overnight.

Evacuation status

The Bennetts' house is INSIDE Little Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready) (Level 1). Follow official instructions — see the sources below.

Fire size132,351 ac+4,266 since last report
Contained10%of the perimeter, per NIFC
Nearest fire edge7.3 miN of the house · as of Aug 15, 4:57 PM PDT · −0.8 mi vs last report
Satellite heat, 24 h7 minearest detection, N of the house · 203 in the surrounding ~50 mi
Air quality110 AQIUnhealthy for sensitive groups · modeled at the house
County road blocksnonelogged by the county · construction delays are in Roads, below
PlainLake WenatcheeFish LakeColes CornerAlder CreekTwin CreekAtkinson FlatTrinityLeavenworthStevens Pass7.3 miThe Bennetts' housefire continues east →
  • Level 3 — Go now
  • Level 2 — Get set
  • Level 1 — Get ready
  • Fire perimeter
  • Satellite heat, 24 h (brighter = fresher)
  • The Bennetts' house
Evacuation zones from the Chelan County Sheriff's live layer; fire perimeter from NIFC as of Aug 15, 4:57 PM PDT. Base geography is hand-plotted and approximate. Rings mark straight-line miles from the house. Containment lines are not mapped — no public GIS source carries them; the brief describes where they are.

The last 24 hours

The house is still inside the Level 1 "Get Ready" zone, and nothing about that has changed overnight: no zone in the system was edited between last night's report and this one. Level 2 "Get Set" holds at 2.0 mi NNE and Level 3 "Go Now" at 3.7 mi NNE, both dated to yesterday's 3:00–3:03 PM PDT redraw, same as reported last night.

The fire itself moved a little. The GIS perimeter finally refreshed — it had been stuck on an Aug 14, 6:02 AM snapshot for over a day — and now shows 132,351 acres, 10% contained, dated Aug 15, 4:57 PM PDT. That's +4,266 acres since last night's snapshot, containment flat, and the nearest mapped edge is now 7.3 mi N, 0.8 mi closer than the 8.1 mi reported Saturday night. InciWeb's Aug 15, 11:55 PM update gives the identical 132,351 acres / 10% figure, so for the first time in a few cycles the two sources agree without reconciliation.

A general search this morning turned up two secondhand references (unconfirmed — the underlying source is blocked from direct fetch here) describing a new Level 1 "Get Ready" zone covering the area south of Chiwawa Loop Road. That matches the geography of yesterday's 3:03 PM redraw that first pulled the house inside Level 1, and reads as the news cycle catching up to a move the GIS layer made a day earlier. Elsewhere, the Chelan County evacuation-zone page is still stuck on its Aug 13, 11:01 AM update, and lakewenatcheeinfo.com again returned no usable content this cycle (a bot-check redirect, not a data-source failure) — a recurring gap noted in several prior briefs.

VIIRS heat: 203 detections in the region in the last 24 hours, nearest 7 mi N. The cluster flagged last night as a possible new start at 7.9 mi NNE has logged a second consecutive day (19 detections, up from 7) and is no longer flagged unverified — it reads as established activity tied to the main fire, not a new ignition. In its place, a new single-day cluster appeared this morning at 6.4 mi N — 2 detections, low intensity (max FRP 1.12), UNVERIFIED. It's the closest near-Plain cluster flagged yet; no news source corroborates it, and it needs a second day of detections before it means anything.

What stands between the fire and Plain

Nothing moved on the zone side. On the ground, the fire closed a modest 0.8 mi over roughly 15 hours (perimeter edge 8.1 → 7.3 mi N) and produced one new low-confidence heat point slightly closer in than the established cluster group. Both are worth tracking, neither is a change in kind: the nearest confirmed heat or mapped edge is still north of 7 mi out, and the established persistent clusters (7.7–7.8 mi N, 33–148 detections each across four days) are unchanged in position, just accumulating more detections in place.

Fire weather

Mostly favorable: W at 3 mph today, shifting NW 2–10 mph (gusts to 18) by Tuesday and staying W/NW through Thursday — no sustained north or northeast component toward the Chiwawa or White River drainages. The one exception is tonight, where the forecast has a light N wind around 5 mph — a brief, weak window with the wrong-direction component, but not strong enough on its own to read as a danger signal. No Red Flag Warning is in the forecast, and no thunderstorm chance is listed this cycle (unlike Saturday's outflow-risk afternoon).

Air quality

Mixed against last night: modeled AQI is 110 (Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups, down from 129), but PM2.5 rose to 38.5 µg/m³ from 13.8. The NWS Spokane Air Quality Alert issued Aug 15 at 10:46 AM is due to expire today at 12:00 PM PDT — worth watching whether it's renewed.

Roads: no new blocks logged.

What I'd watch

  • The new 6.4 mi N heat cluster. Single day, two detections, low FRP — needs a second day before it's more than noise. If it grows the way last night's 7.9 mi cluster did, it becomes the next thing to name explicitly.
  • Whether Level 1 upgrades to Level 2. The house sits in an awareness zone; a level change, not just a boundary change, is the next real trigger.
  • Tonight's north wind window. Light and short, but it's the only north-component forecast in the next five days — worth a second look if it verifies stronger than 5 mph or lines up with new heat.

The plan, decided in advance

  • If a Level 1 zone reaches the house: confirm go-bags, documents, and medications are staged; keep both vehicles above half a tank; recheck this page and Watch Duty morning and evening.
  • If Level 2 reaches the house: load the cars, position them facing out, and leave early if anyone is home alone or mobility-limited. Do not wait for Level 3 to decide.
  • If Level 3 reaches the house — leave immediately: primary route Beaver Valley Rd → SR 207 → US 2; alternate Chumstick Hwy to Leavenworth (mind the pilot-car delays); US 2 west over Stevens Pass if east is compromised.

Default plan drafted from Ready-Set-Go guidance — worth a family walk-through while things are calm. Authorities' instructions override it.

Evacuation zones, measured from the house

ZoneLevelFrom the houseBoundary last edited
Little Giantchanged <24 hLevel 1INSIDE THIS ZONEAug 15, 3:03 PM PDT
Little Giantchanged <24 hLevel 22 mi NNE (20°)Aug 15, 3:03 PM PDT
Little Giantchanged <24 hLevel 33.7 mi NNE (16°)Aug 15, 3:00 PM PDT
LG EntiatLevel 38.4 mi ENE (58°)Aug 10, 9:31 AM PDT
LG EntiatLevel 210.8 mi ESE (104°)Aug 8, 6:15 PM PDT
LG EntiatLevel 112.3 mi ESE (115°)Aug 8, 5:51 PM PDT
LG ChelanLevel 315.1 mi NE (53°)Aug 13, 2:24 PM PDT
LG ChelanLevel 216 mi ENE (76°)Aug 13, 2:24 PM PDT
LG ChelanLevel 117.2 mi E (85°)Aug 13, 1:33 PM PDT
LG MansonLevel 323 mi NNE (33°)Aug 1, 8:16 PM PDT
LG MansonLevel 223.9 mi NE (42°)Aug 1, 8:12 PM PDT
LG MansonLevel 125.4 mi ENE (59°)Aug 2, 1:25 PM PDT

Zone geometry comes only from the Sheriff's GIS layer — news descriptions of boundaries have run 10+ days behind the actual polygon edits. Distances are straight-line to the zone boundary.

Wind and weather, next four days

Air Quality Alert — in effect until Aug 16, 12:00 PM PDT

  • TodayW 3 mphAreas Of Smoke then Haze · 84°F
  • TonightN 5 mphAreas Of Smoke then Haze · 54°F
  • MondayW 3 mphAreas Of Smoke · 87°F
  • Monday NightNW 5 mphPartly Cloudy · 54°F
  • TuesdayNW 2 to 10 mphSunny · 85°F
  • Tuesday NightNW 6 to 10 mphMostly Clear · 51°F
  • WednesdayW 1 to 8 mphSunny · 84°F
  • Wednesday NightNW 5 to 8 mphPartly Cloudy · 53°F

Report history

ReportFire size (GIS)ContainedNearest edgeZone status
Sep 17 · Evening172,814 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 17 · Morning172,814 ac+10981%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 16 · Evening172,705 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 16 · Morning172,705 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 15 · Evening172,705 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 15 · Morning172,705 ac+2281%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 14 · Evening172,683 ac1281%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Previous reports(69)
Sep 14 · Morning172,695 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 13 · Evening172,695 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 13 · Morning172,695 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 12 · Evening172,695 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 12 · Morning172,695 ac+10381%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 11 · Evening172,592 ac+19181%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 11 · Morning172,401 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 10 · Evening172,401 ac+481%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 10 · Morning172,397 ac+19881%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 9 · Evening172,199 ac+3281%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 9 · Morning172,167 ac+64181%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 8 · Morning171,526 ac+6881%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 7 · Evening171,458 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 7 · Morning171,458 ac+29581%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 6 · Evening171,163 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 6 · Morning171,163 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 5 · Evening171,163 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 5 · Morning171,163 ac+17881%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 4 · Evening170,985 ac81%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 4 · Morning170,985 ac+1773%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 3 · Evening170,968 ac+21365%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 3 · Morning170,755 ac65%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 2 · Evening170,755 ac+11049%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 2 · Morning170,645 ac+549%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 1 · Evening170,640 ac14449%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Sep 1 · Morning170,784 ac49%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Aug 31 · Evening170,784 ac+7,70649%5.2 mi NNEoutside all zones
Aug 31 · Morning163,078 ac1149%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 30 · Evening163,089 ac+53527%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 30 · Morning162,554 ac+1427%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 29 · Evening162,540 ac+29627%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 29 · Morning162,244 ac71727%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 28 · Evening162,961 ac+1,82925%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 28 · Morning161,132 ac+11,27125%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 27 · Evening149,861 ac23%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 27 · Morning149,861 ac23%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 26 · Evening149,861 ac+2,23523%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 26 · Morning147,626 ac23%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 25 · Evening147,626 ac+1,58421%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 25 · Morning146,042 ac21%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 24 · Evening146,042 ac+1,21215%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 24 · Morning144,830 ac15%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 23 · Evening144,830 ac+2,60415%5.2 mi NNELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 23 · Morning142,226 ac15%5.3 mi NELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 22 · Evening142,226 ac+815%5.3 mi NELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 22 · Morning142,218 ac+2,73115%5.3 mi NELittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 21 · Evening139,487 ac12%6.6 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 21 · Morning139,487 ac+91012%6.6 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 20 · Evening138,577 ac+10212%6.6 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 20 · Morning138,475 ac+88212%6.6 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 19 · Evening137,593 ac+29910%6.7 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 19 · Morning137,294 ac+1,30910%6.8 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 18 · Evening135,985 ac10%7 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 18 · Morning135,985 ac+1,35010%7 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 17 · Evening134,635 ac+2,28410%7.1 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 17 · Morning132,351 ac10%7.3 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 16 · Evening132,351 ac10%7.3 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 16 · Morning132,351 ac+4,26610%7.3 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 15 · Evening128,085 ac10%8.1 mi NLittle Giant - Level 1 (Get Ready)
Aug 15 · Morning128,085 ac10%8.1 mi Noutside all zones
Aug 14 · Evening128,085 ac7%8.1 mi Noutside all zones
Aug 14 · Morning128,085 ac2197%8.1 mi Noutside all zones
Aug 13 · Evening128,304 ac+5335%8.1 mi Noutside all zones
Aug 13 · Morning127,771 ac+2835%8.1 mi Noutside all zones
Aug 12 · Evening127,488 ac5%8.6 mi NNWoutside all zones
Aug 12 · Morning127,488 ac+5,0875%8.6 mi NNWoutside all zones
Aug 11 · Evening122,401 ac2%8.6 mi NNWoutside all zones
Aug 11 · Morning122,401 ac+5,4452%8.6 mi NNWoutside all zones
Aug 10 · Evening116,956 ac2%8.6 mi NNWoutside all zones

Sources

Previous briefs

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The limits of this page

This page is an automated, unofficial synthesis and can be wrong or stale. It is not a substitute for official alerts. For live evacuation status use Watch Duty, Chelan County Emergency Management, and Everbridge alerts. In an emergency, follow instructions from local authorities.