Deer take refuge near wind turbines as fire scorches Washington state land
SEATTLE (AP) — Bjorn Hedges drove around the two wind farms he manages the morning after a wildfire raced through. At many of the massive turbines he saw deer: does and fawns that had found refuge on gravel pads at the base of the towers, some of the only areas left untouched amid an expanse of blackened earth.
“That was their sanctuary — everything was burning around them,” Hedges said Monday, two days after he found the animals.
Crews continued fighting the Newell Road Fire by air and by ground in rural south-central Washington state, just north of the Columbia River, amid dry weather and high wind gusts. Over the weekend, fire threatened a solar farm along with a natural gas pipeline and a plant at a landfill that converts methane to energy.
Firefighters responded quickly and s...