OLYMPIA - Lightning strikes that continued into the evening hours caused more than 75 new fires today in northeastern Washington. Many of the new wildfires were on public and private lands protected by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

DNR has responded to today's outbreak by deploying 200 firefighters, 30 fire engines and 5 helicopters, plus a 900-gallon air tanker. Several other local and federal agencies also are responding to new fire reports in northeast counties where fire hazard levels on open land are rated "high" to "extreme" due to dry weather and low moisture levels in grasses, trees, and other vegetation.

On 7/21/09 at 5:17pm Washington State Department of Transportation worker stopped to render assistance to what he thought was a disabled 1999 Lincoln Continental on SR-14 westbound near 164th St.

What he saw was the male passenger, Nathaniel D. Mosley a 22 year old Vancouver resident, striking the female driver. Troopers from the Washington State Patrol were dispatched to the scene.

Shelton, WA - Since January, 2008, the Mason County Sheriff's Traffic Enforcement team has been diligently helping to keep the roads of our County safer for its citizens.  This is being done through thorough and competent investigations, strict enforcement of traffic laws and educating the public.

The traffic enforcement deputies are out on the county roads aggressively looking for the impaired, aggressive, and speeding drivers.  Traffic Deputies have partnered with the Washington State Patrol, Washington Traffic Safety Commission and other local law enforcement agencies to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injury collisions by conducting nighttime seat belt emphasis patrols and X-52 emphasis patrols that target drinking and speeding drivers.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirms a downed plane in Elma this afternoon. The plane was reported downed just before 3 PM North of Elma in a wooded area near Newman Creek Road.

Firewatch Number 1 departed Olympia to conduct a fire check on Weyerhaeuser lands and reportedly crashed after running into powerlines killing the plane's single occupant.

The Grays Harbor PUD reports a 15-customer outage related to the incident, power should be restored to those customers Wednesday evening.

ABERDEEN - Grays Harbor PUD is conducting a financial analysis to determine the local impact of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) decision announced Tuesday to increase power rates by an average of  7 percent, effective Oct. 1.

"Grays Harbor PUD, along with many of our customers, opposed any BPA rate increase," said Rick Lovely, General Manager of Grays Harbor PUD. "While the increase is lower than the 9.4 percent BPA originally proposed, we believe any increase was unnecessary and will only further depress our already struggling economy."

In May, the PUD's Board of Commissioners decided to delay a possible 4 percent increase in the energy charge on PUD bills, saying that management's cost-savings measures were having a positive impact on the utility's financial condition and they wanted to see what the final BPA increase would be.