DRYDEN, Wash. (AP) -- A wildfire near this central Washington town kept hundreds of people out of their homes while to the north, a dramatic hail and lightning storm briefly trapped 65 people and their vehicles between mudslides along the North Cascades Highway.
No one was injured in the slides Monday evening, but about 40 motorists and 25 firefighters and their vehicles were trapped on the road by three slides northwest of Rainy Pass, fire information officer Cynthia Reichelt said.
Crews arrived quickly at the blocked areas from Everett on the west and Twisp on the east and were able to clear two of the slides, enabling motorists to leave early Tuesday, said Jeff Adamson, spokesman for the State Transportation Department.
``They were all given the opportunity to drive out. Some of them decided they were still on vacation and it wasn't raining, so they decided to stay and continue camping,'' Adamson said.
He did not know how many vacationers decided to stay.
The storm dropped half-inch hail and an inch of rain within a half hour in the area of the Mebee fire, which essentially burned itself out.
Firefighters gave blankets and hot meals originally intended for ``hotshot'' firefighting crews to the stranded motorists, Reichelt said.
Adamson said the slides at mileposts 150, 153 and 156 were roughly 300 feet wide. A fourth slide, also about 300 feet wide and up to 8 feet deep, occurred at about 2 a.m., forcing crews to keep the highway closed, he said. Transportation officials were not predicting when it would reopen.
An unknown number of people were also stranded by a 60-foot washout on a U.S. Forest Service road leading to Harts Pass, about 10 miles north of Rainy Pass, the crest of the North Cascades Highway, Reichelt said.
``Everybody's safe,'' said Dave Johnson of the Washington Incident Management Team on the Mebee fire.
The lightning-caused Mebee fire charred 238 acres about a half mile north of the North Cascades Highway before the storm hit, Reichelt said.
Lightning strikes from the latest storm started nine new small fires Monday night near Mazama, east of Rainy Pass.
Continued high temperatures and more storms were forecast in central Washington, where crews have been battling a half-dozen wildfires.
An evacuation order remained in effect Tuesday for 326 homes that authorities feared could be threatened after the Fischer fire jumped fire lines near Dryden last weekend, said Greg Tedder, a fire information officer.
The fire crossed a road Tuesday morning near one evacuated area, Ollalla Canyon, and firefighters were working hard to protect homes there, he said.
Residents of an additional 234 homes were on notice they might have to leave if the fire grows, Tedder said.
About 1,200 firefighters were assigned to the fire, which covered about 7,200 acres of private, state and national forest land and was about 30 percent contained.
Elsewhere, firefighters continued to dump water on the 29,920-acres Deep Harbor fire, part of the three-fire Pot Peak-Sisi Ridge complex burning near Lake Chelan.
About 280 guests and staff were evacuated from Holden Village, a Christian retreat, after sheriff's deputies warned residents there and in two nearby hamlets, Lucerne and Domke Lake, that the fire might spread north toward the area.
About 500 firefighters were assigned to the Pot Peak-Sisi Ridge fires, which have blackened a total of 47,390 acres and were 85 percent contained.
The lightning-caused Dirty Face fire near Lake Wenatchee was estimated at 171 acres Monday. The fire was burning in very steep terrain in a mix of heavy brush and timber. No structures had burned as of Monday, but some trails were closed.
About 65 firefighters were assigned to the lightning-caused Rattlesnake Peak fire, which has burned 750 acres about 40 miles west of Yakima.
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