Dry, windy conditions challenge Washington state firefighters
By Eric M. Johnson SEATTLE (Reuters) - A return of hot, dry winds hampered ground crews fighting the largest cluster of wildfires on record in Washington state on Tuesday, one of more than five dozen major conflagrations raging across the drought-stricken American West. The National Weather Service issued "red-flag" warnings for extreme fire hazards on Tuesday evening in central and northeast Washington state, while unhealthy air-quality alerts were posted for parts of Oregon, Idaho and Montana due to wildfire smoke. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, reported 62 large wildfires or clusters of fires being fought on Tuesday in the eight Western states, the bulk of them in the Pacific Northwest, Idaho and Montana. Those blazes have scorched nearly 1.6 million acres (648,000 hectares), an area larger than Delaware, with Washington state and Oregon alone accounting for more than 1 million acres (400,000 hectares) of the tally, according to the fire center. In north-central Washington, a cluster of deadly fires dubbed the Okanogan Complex has burned more than 258,339 acres (104,546 hectares), overtaking last year's Carlton Complex fire as the state's largest on record. It was just 15 percent contained on Tuesday, up from 10 percent the day before. Firefighting conditions worsened as a cooler layer of air that had effectively dampened the fire zone began lifting from the area on Tuesday afternoon, kicking up wind and heat that increased the flames' intensity, fire command spokesman Peter Frenzen said. On the positive side, the atmospheric change whisked away thick smoke that had grounded water-dropping aircraft over the previous two days, and helicopters and airplane tankers returned to the skies on Tuesday, Frenzen said. Last week, three firefighters were killed and four were injured in an initial assault on part of the Okanogan Complex. A memorial to honor the fallen firefighters was slated for Sunday in Wenatchee, the U.S. Forest Service said. So far this year, U.S. wildland blazes have claimed the lives of at least 13 firefighters, four more than were killed in the line of duty during all of 2014. Smoke was also dispersing over a cluster of fires around Lake Chelan, some 50 miles (80 km) to the south, though smoky conditions will likely return on Wednesday, officials said. Fires have scorched 88,104 acres (35,654 hectares), and some 1,000 residents in the broader area of Chelan, a resort town at the base of the lake, remained under evacuation orders with the fire about 40 percent contained. A 16-year-old prison inmate from a fire-assigned work crew, who fled his unit over the weekend and later shot himself in the head with a stolen handgun during a brief standoff with deputies, was being treated at a Seattle hospital, officials said on Tuesday. His condition was not being made public. This summer's blazes have stretched resources thin, prompting a rare enlistment of firefighting reinforcements from the U.S. military and abroad. Dozens of fire managers and firefighters from Australia and New Zealand were preparing for deployment against the Washington wildfires, the U.S. Forest Service said. Firefighters are bringing in air monitors to eastern Oregon communities surrounded by wildfires and choked by smoke to determine just how dangerous the air has become, the Forest Service said. (Reporting by Eric M. Johnson; Editing by Eric Beech)
