Firefighters battled a 200-acre fire on the Warm Springs Reservation on Wednesday night and summed up their progress in one sentence: ”It’s not going well.”

The Eyerly Fire, sparked by Sunday’s lightning storm, continued to spread Wednesday, aided by a strong afternoon wind and hot, dry conditions. Lookouts spotted the fire Tuesday afternoon.

The fire is burning in a canyon with steep, thickly timbered slopes on the west side of Lake Billy Chinook at the south end of the Warm Springs Reservation near the point where the Metolius River enters the reservoir.

”One of the biggest problems with this fire is that it’s on a south aspect,” said Warm Springs Fire Management Officer Gary Cooke.

That means one of the slopes faces south and gets a lot of sun. The ground, foliage and timber are extremely dry, catch fire easily, and burn quickly at a very high temperature, he said.

Complicating matters further, there was a high wind blowing west off the lake Wednesday afternoon, pushing the fire down the canyon. The area is also inaccessible to vehicles so firefighters have to walk in or get dropped off by helicopters.

The Central Oregon Management Incident Team was called in Wednesday, as the fire moved rapidly down the canyon, started jumping the Metolius River and threatened cabins along the lakeside.

The team is made up of people from all the fire agencies in the state and often takes over incident command on large fires that exceed the capabilities of the local firefighting agencies.

Wednesday night, fire crews from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs battled the main blaze on the reservation side of the Metolius River while crews from the state and the U.S. Forest Service fought spot fires that were jumping the river on the south side.

A total of three fire crews, or 60 people, were on the scene attempting to bring the fire under control Wednesday night.

The Forest Service’s Monty Campground was evacuated.

Bulletin staff writer Julia Lyon

contributed to this report. Melissa Bearns can be reached at 541-617-7829 or mbearns@bendbulletin.com.