Final report · September 17, 2026 · Evening · Plain, Washington
About this page
This page tracked the Little Giant Fire for the Bennett family from August 10, 2026 to September 17, 2026. The fire is no longer a threat to the house, and the page is no longer updating. The report below is the last one it produced.
In August 2026 the fire was burning about nine miles from the family's house in Plain, Washington, and growing by more than ten thousand acres on its worst days. The official picture was scattered across the Sheriff's evacuation map, the interagency perimeter feed, satellite heat data, the fire-weather discussion, and local news. Reading all of it twice a day by hand had become a job. This page was built in a single session with Claude Code to do that job automatically and to answer one question every time: where is the fire relative to the house, and is the house inside an evacuation zone?
Twice a day a scheduled agent ran the data pipeline against the official sources, measured everything from the house, wrote the brief, and published it. Each run was committed alongside the last, so every report could say what had changed rather than restate the picture. An alert rule emailed the family whenever a zone moved near the house. All 76 reports are kept in the archive, and the sources and rules are described on How this works.
The fire grew from about 117,000 acres to nearly 173,000. The house sat inside the Level 1 “Get Ready” zone for sixteen days, from August 15 to August 31, and the nearest edge of the fire came within 5.2 miles. It never came closer. By mid-September the perimeter had been static for weeks at 81% containment, and on September 16 the last evacuation advisory near the house dropped from the county's map. The family retired the page the next day.
The final report
Data captured Sep 17, 4:10 PM PDT · unofficial & automated — in an emergency use Watch Duty and official alerts, not this page
A flat cycle — the GIS perimeter hasn't updated since this morning's 6:22 AM capture, holding at 172,814 acres, 81% contained, nearest edge 5.2 mi NNE. The Level 1 ring that dropped from near the house two days ago stayed off the map for a third straight cycle. Near-Plain VIIRS clusters are unchanged and still six days stale; air quality dipped slightly but stays in the Good range.
Evacuation status
The Bennetts' house is outside every evacuation zone.
Nearest zone boundary: Little Giant Level 3 (go now), 5.1 mi N of the house — boundary last moved Sep 3, 2:31 PM PDT.
Fire size172,814 acGIS perimeter of Sep 17, 6:22 AM PDT
Contained81%of the perimeter, per NIFC
Nearest fire edge5.2 miNNE of the house · as of Sep 17, 6:22 AM PDT
Satellite heat, 24 h40.9 minearest detection, NNW of the house · 47 in the surrounding ~50 mi
Air quality39 AQIGood · modeled at the house
County road blocksnonelogged by the county · construction delays are in Roads, below
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 Sep 17, 6:22 AM 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 GIS perimeter is unchanged from this morning: 172,814 acres, 81%
contained (perimeter still dated Sep 17, 6:22 AM PDT — no new mapping
run today), with the nearest edge holding at 5.2 mi NNE.
InciWeb's update, posted Sep 17 at 1:14 PM PDT,
carries the same 172,814 acres and 81% containment, personnel steady at
643. Fire behavior is described the same way as this morning: scattered
smoldering with limited creeping in duff and surface fuels, heavy interior
fuels (stump holes, snags) still able to retain heat and reignite as drying
continues.
The Level 1 "Get Ready" ring that dropped from the Sheriff's live zone
layer two afternoons ago (it had sat 2.0 mi NNE, the closest zone of any
kind to the house) has now been absent for a third consecutive cycle — only
the Level 3 "Go Now" ring at 5.1 mi N (unedited since Sep 3) and the
distant Stehekin Level 1 at 39.7 mi N remain. The county's
active-emergencies page
still shows its Sep 16, 2:30 PM update verbatim — same wording about the
Level 3 zone reaching Deep Creek/Lower Chiwawa River Road and Alder
Creek/Goose Creek Flat, unchanged from the past two briefs and still
consistent with that zone's already-mapped southern edge rather than new
growth. Neither InciWeb nor the county page states outright that the
dropped ring was lifted, so it stays provisional, but three holding cycles
make a data glitch increasingly unlikely.
VIIRS logged 47 detections region-wide (up from 40), but the nearest
sits 40.9 mi NNW — well outside the near-Plain radius. The five
near-Plain clusters (within 12 mi) are unchanged from this morning: same
distances, detection counts, and days, with no detection newer than Sep
11 — now six days stale — and the same three cells (6.1 mi NE, 8.5 mi
NNE, 10.1 mi NNE) still flagged UNVERIFIED as their Sep 9–10 detections age
out of the upstream retention window, not from new heat. The news sweep
(InciWeb above; lakewenatcheeinfo.com — unreachable again; Lake Chelan Now,
still only its Sep 12 RAWS piece; the county EM page above; wasmoke.blogspot.com,
most recent relevant post Sep 11; and a general search, which surfaced only
older articles from earlier growth stages — 132,978 and 171,302 acres — both
discarded as stale) found nothing supporting a new start near Plain.
Fire weather
Winds stay mild and mostly favorable through the window: this afternoon
southwest, ~3 mph; tonight north, 3–9 mph — the drainage-danger
direction, but at a speed too low to push smoke or fire meaningfully
toward Plain; Friday northwest, 1–5 mph; Saturday through Monday
light and westerly. No red flag alert is in effect. The NWS discussion
does flag isolated thunderstorms with gusty outflow tonight, but confines
that risk to southeast Washington and the central Idaho Panhandle — well
east of the fire area, not a local concern here.
Air quality
Modeled AQI at the house is 39 (PM2.5 0.9 µg/m³) — Good, a small uptick
from this morning's 24 but still in the same range as recent cycles.
Roads: no new road blocks logged; the standing Forest Service closure order
near the fire (dated Sep 4) is unchanged.
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
Zone
Level
From the house
Boundary last edited
Little Giant
Level 3
5.1 mi N (357°)
Sep 3, 2:31 PM PDT
Stehekin
Level 1
39.7 mi N (356°)
Aug 29, 2:02 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.
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.