US - Sixty Western wildfires stretch crews to limit

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Sixty Western wildfires

stretch crews to limit

Tuesday,

August 1, 2006; Posted: 9:55 a.m. EDT (13:55 GMT)

 

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- For the

first time since 2003, federal land management agencies are being asked to make

more employees available to fight wildfires because crews and equipment have

been stretched to the limit by nearly 60 major blazes around the West.

The National Interagency Fire Center over the weekend raised its response status to the

highest threat level, a move triggered when nearly all available crews and

firefighting resources are committed.

The move allows federal firefighting coordinators to summon

additional federal employees, military reinforcements and foreign fire crews if

necessary.

" It frees up what we call the militia -- agency

employees whose regular job may be as a biologist or realty specialist but who are

trained in fire duty and can now be called up to help, " said Randy

Eardley, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman at the federal

firefighting center in Boise.

More than 24,000 firefighters were working on fires across

the West on Monday, including 58 large fires of 500 acres or more.

The biggest active fire in the country was in northern Nevada, where nearly 300 square

miles of grass and sagebrush had burned. It was 10 percent contained Monday,

and fire bosses had no estimate when it would be surrounded.

No homes were in immediate danger, though one outbuilding

had been destroyed, said Jamie Thompson of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management

in Winnemucca, Nevada.

More people were told to evacuate Monday from areas south of

Chadron, Nebraska, on the fourth day of

fires that have scorched nearly 80 square miles.

About 45 to 50 people were affected by the latest evacuation

orders, and hundreds of others evacuated over the weekend were kept from their

homes.

Four rural houses have been destroyed and several more

damaged since lightning sparked the fires last week.

In Montana, more firefighters, equipment and aircraft

arrived Monday as crews fought to corral a fire that blew up rapidly in Glacier

National Park over the weekend, fanned by strong winds and blistering heat.

Firefighters got some relief Monday with calmer winds and

lower temperatures, but officials said the fire -- estimated at 34 square miles

-- still posed a threat to the gateway community of St. Mary.

The blaze came within a mile of the town over the weekend.

The National Park Service on Sunday evacuated its administrative site there, as

well as several area campgrounds.

Most of the park remained open to visitors, officials said.

Residents of a subdivision in central Oregon were allowed to return

late Monday as crews tamed a fire there, though evacuation orders remained in

effect for another 500 residents of two subdivisions near the tourist town of Sisters.

The subdivisions appear to be protected from the 14-square

mile fire, which is 30 percent contained, said Scott Brayton, a fire spokesman.

An evacuation order was also lifted for several dozen

residents near Weaverville in northern California after a wildfire that destroyed one home calmed down.

In Idaho, a 5-square-mile fire in the mountains fed on bug-killed

evergreen stands as it neared a cluster of vacation homes and a mining museum.

More than 70,600 timber and range fires have burned on

federal land so far this year, higher than the 10-year average of 50,984,

according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Because of unusually large early-season range fires in Texas and Oklahoma, the acreage burned so

far in 2006 is 5.5 million, compared with a 10-year average of 3 million acres

for the same period.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/01/wildfires.ap/index.html

 

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