A wildfire near The Dalles was about 80 percent contained tonight, after it had burned about 3,600 acres.

The fire started Thursday evening just south of the Columbia River, east of The Dalles and west of Biggs Junction. No homes were lost, but eight to 10 structures were threatened, and a tractor and two disc machines were destroyed, according to the Wasco County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff’s office had called for evacuating communities on Thursday but lifted that notice late Thursday. An American Red Cross shelter site opened at The Dalles Middle School. The cause of the blaze that burned grasslands and wheat fields was not yet determined.

Winds picked up late this morning and the fire made a strong push toward the Deschutes River, according to Stan Hinatsu, a spokesman for the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Crews then used a single-engine air tanker to take water from the Columbia River and drop it on the blaze, a move that Hinatsu said “helped knock the energy out of the fire” and called such aerial assets “a huge advantage” to firefighters on the ground.

By this evening, firefighters had stopped the fire’s forward progress and the west end of it was pretty cold, Hinatsu said. At the height of the day, about 40 people fought the fire but crews were headed home for the night and had placed the fire on patrol status, so it would not be actively fought but patrols would watch for flare-ups through the night. Hinatsu expected about three engines to return in the morning to mop up.

Crews responded from Mid-Columbia Fire & Rescue, Dallesport Fire District, Columbia Rural Fire Protection District, Hood River County Taskforce, Klickitat County, U.S. Forest Service, Oregon Department of Forestry, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and Prineville Bureau of Land Management.

A public information hotline has been set up at 541-506-2792.