The Bellevue Fire Department announced on Thursday that they have sent additional city firefighters to battle the raging fires out in northern and northeastern Washington.

According to Bellevue Fire spokesperson Lt. Richard Burke, the department currently has eight firefighters deployed across the state.

On Thursday, Aug 20, Bellevue Fire received a request for a four-person engine company to support a growing need for structure protection in Okanogan County. The communication experts will help maintain and expand a critical communication system being utilized to manage this large, fast-moving fire. The firefighter-paramedics will provide care for both injured fire crews as well as community members caught up in this devastating fire, the department said in a news release.

The department had already sent several soldiers to fight fires in Northeastern Washington.

On Aug. 17, the department dispatched both a communications teams and a crew of firefighter-paramedics to the “stickpin” fire in Ferry County.

“These members’ deployments do not impact our daily staffing other than we back fill with overtime members to fill in those deployed members shifts. We are down to just a few backup fire engines so equipment-wise we are getting ‘thin,’ Burke said. “If there are additional requests we will need to evaluate whether we can send both staff and equipment or just staff.”

“Bellevue Fire has consistently deployed crews and equipment to meet the requests being generated through the state Office of Emergency Management. The state will manage costs and reimbursements for these deployments as well. We ask that residents be very cautious around our own community in this “extremely high” fire danger season,” the department said in a news release.