Calif. firefighters battle more than 1,400 blazes
Pastor Dale Morgan
Calif. firefighters battle more than 1,400 blazes*
By SCOTT LINDLAW,
Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Two of Northern California's more than 1,400 wildfires
choked parts of the Sierra Nevada foothills, darkening a 100-mile
stretch between Sacramento and Reno with clouds of black smoke.
The fires in the Tahoe National Forest blanketed the Interstate 80
corridor linking the two cities and the foothill communities in between
where tens of thousands of people live. The flames forced the evacuation
of the tiny Gold Rush community of Washington.
Along the Pacific, firefighters hoped coastal fog would help them gain
ground against a blaze that was just 3 percent contained in the storied
town of Big Sur. John Heil, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service,
said it had blackened nearly 62 square miles, or about 39,600 acres.
Firefighters made headway against a blaze of comparable size in the
Shasta-Trinity National Forest, increasing their containment to 23
percent. But the location hampered their efforts.
"It is extremely steep, very rugged territory, and there are a lot of
injuries, twisting ankles, slipping on hills," said Jason Kirchner,
another Forest Service spokesman. Burning debris is "rolling downhill
right past your containment line. It's very complicated, difficult,
dirty firefighting work."
Fire crews inched closer to getting some of the largest of 1,420 blazes
surrounded, according to the state Office of Emergency Services. Some
364,600 acres _ or almost 570 square miles _ of forest, grass and brush
had burned.
A "red flag warning" _ representing the most extreme fire danger _ was
still in effect for extreme northeastern California, northwest Nevada
and eastern Oregon, the National Weather Service said.
Lower-than-average rainfall and record levels of parched vegetation
likely mean a long, fiery summer throughout northern California,
according to the Forest Service's state fire outlook, released last week.
The fires were mostly started by lightning storms that were unusually
intense for so early in the season. But summer storms will probably be
even fiercer, according to the Forest Service.
"Our most widespread and/or critical lightning events often occur in
late July or August, and we have no reason to deviate from that," the
agency's report said.
The blazes have destroyed more than 50 buildings, said Gregory Renick,
state emergency services spokesman.
In Arizona, strong wind turned a 500-acre wildfire away from the remote
mountain community of Crown King north of Phoenix, officials said
Monday. However, there was still no containment and the community was
still considered threatened, said Prescott National Forest spokeswoman
Debbie Maneely. About 120 residents voluntarily evacuated Sunday as
flames got to within a mile of the former mining town.
Crews in central New Mexico's Manzano Mountains were doing mop-up
operations Monday on an almost 9-square-mile fire that destroyed six
homes and 10 outbuildings. Residents who left last week were allowed to
return home Sunday. The fire, started by lightning June 23, was 85
percent contained.
In Guffey, Colo., about 40 miles west of Colorado Springs, most of the
100 residents who fled a 1,115-acre lightning-started wildfire were
allowed back home Sunday. Final evacuation orders were expected to be
lifted Monday morning.
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Associated Press writer Don Thompson in Sacramento contributed to this
report.
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On the Net:
Fire information at http://www.oes.ca.gov