Fire Crews Fight Heat, Wildfires in West
Pastor Dale Morgan
Fire Crews Fight Heat, Wildfires in West*
Saturday July 7, 2007 12:46 AM
By The Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Firefighters had to contend with triple-digit
temperatures Friday in Utah, Southern California and Oregon as they
battled wildfires that charred thousands of acres in rugged terrain.
Crews managed to keep a week-old blaze that killed three people and
destroyed a dozen homes in northeastern Utah from growing much larger,
despite gusty wind, officials said.
Twelve helicopters and more than 800 firefighters were working the fire
100 miles east of Salt Lake City. It was 50 percent contained Friday and
had consumed just over 66 square miles in Uintah and Duchesne counties.
``The hard work of the crews paid off as containment lines held as winds
gusted up to 30 mph,'' the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team said.
On the Utah-Arizona line, where temperatures exceeded 100 degrees, 50
firefighters and two air tankers fought a blaze southwest of St. George
that was sparked by lightening Thursday and burned at least 4,000 acres,
or six square miles.
``Erratic winds caused the fire to quickly grow in size and remain
extremely active throughout the night,'' the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management said. ``Smoke from the Black Rock Gulch fire is visible from
St. George and surrounding communities.''
In Southern California, 1,500-acre wildfire burned Friday in the
foothills of Santa Barbara County as nearly 1,000 firefighters struggled
to halt its spread in dense, dry brush. It was 30 percent contained and
had ``potential to grow,'' county fire Capt. Eli Iskow said.
The fire broke out Wednesday about 15 miles north of Los Olivos and
burned in chaparral and stands of oaks and moved into Los Padres
National Forest.
The area had not burned in 40 years or more, forest spokeswoman Donna
Poth said. ``The moisture levels are at historic lows,'' she said.
Seven firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion or minor injuries
since the blaze began. The cause was under investigation.
Another fire was contained at 400 acres in the high desert of San
Bernardino County after burning through foothills in Lucerne Valley,
said Bill Peters, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry
and Fire Protection.
It was started by lightning from a dry thunderstorm on Thursday, Peters
said.
The storm's high winds fanned the flames across a sparsely populated
area near the backside of the San Bernardino Mountains but they later
subsided, Peters said.
In southeast Oregon, a burning vehicle ignited a wildfire Thursday that
grew to 10,000 acres. It was burning Friday five miles away from the
Oregon State University's Northern Great Basin Experiment Station,
federal officials said.
``The fire is burning in sagebrush, grass and juniper and spreading in
multiple directions, mostly north and east,'' roughly 30 miles southwest
of Riley, said Tara Martinak of the Bureau of Land Management's Burns
District.
The fire threatened cattle, power lines and Camp Gap Ranch, one of the
original camps established to support President Franklin Roosevelt's
Civilian Conservation Corps. But the burned vehicle was the only
reported damage.