Firefighters face high winds stoking deadly blazes in U.S. Northwest
By Eric M. Johnson SEATTLE (Reuters) - Crews battling a flurry of wildfires raging unchecked across the Pacific Northwest contended with high winds on Thursday, a day after three firefighters were killed and four others were injured in Washington state. Authorities late on Wednesday ordered the evacuation of about 4,000 homes threatened by fire in the riverfront towns of Twisp and Winthrop in the Methow Valley, nestled in the foothills of the Cascade mountains in north-central Washington. The Twisp-area blaze, part of a larger cluster of fires dubbed the Okanogan Complex, has blackened 7,873 acres (3,194 hectares) of rural brush and dry timber about 115 miles (185 km) northeast of Seattle since erupting on Wednesday, said Rick Scriven, a spokesman authorized to speak about the blaze. As of late Thursday afternoon, crews had yet to establish firm containment lines around the blaze, Scriven said, adding that suppression efforts across the Northwest had been complicated by "sporadic and erratic winds" throughout the day. The blaze near Twisp was burning in the same county as last July's massive Carlton Complex fire, the state's largest on record, which destroyed about 300 homes as it blackened 250,000 acres (100,000 hectares). The Twisp blaze is just one of more than 70 large wildfires or clusters of fires under full-scale attack in several Western states, the bulk of them in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California and Montana, the National Interagency Fire Centre in Boise reported. Those fires have collectively scorched some 1.3 million acres (5,260 square kilometres) in the drought-parched region. The Twisp blaze has also proven the deadliest. Three U.S. Forest Service firefighters in an engine crew perished on Wednesday while battling the flames, which overtook their position after they were involved in a vehicle accident, Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers said. Among the dead was Thomas Zbyszewski, a physics major and actor at Whitman College in southeastern Washington. Four other firefighters were injured, he said, one of them hospitalized in critical condition with burns over 60 percent of his body. RESOURCES STRETCHED U.S. wildland blazes have claimed the lives of at least 13 firefighters and support personnel so far this year, four more than died in the line of duty during all of 2014, the interagency fire centre said. This year's toll also is the highest since 2013, when 34 wildland firefighters were killed nationwide, including 19 members of an elite "hotshots" team in Arizona. About 50 miles (80 km) south of Twisp, the so-called First Creek fire was posing a renewed threat to populated areas after engulfing more than 68,000 acres (27,000 hectares), with 39 homes and 28 outbuildings destroyed days ago near the resort town of Chelan, according to sheriff's spokesman Rich Magnussen. The First Creek blaze jumped containment lines on Wednesday evening, triggering road closures and prompting authorities to extend evacuation orders to some 800 people, Magnussen said. Dozens more homes have been reduced to ruins in Idaho and Oregon in recent days. The widespread conflagrations have stretched civilian firefighting resources thin, prompting authorities to call in help from the U.S. Army and Canadian crews, as well as mobilize personnel from Australia and New Zealand for the first time since 2008. Seventy-one fire managers and specialists from those two countries were due to arrive in Idaho on Aug. 23. President Barack Obama has directed his administration to consult with local and state officials while the threat persists. Speaking in Chelan, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told reporters his agency expects to exhaust its firefighting budget by early September but said necessary funds and assets would continue to be made available where needed. The governors of Oregon and Idaho joined Washington state in calling up state National Guard troops backed by military aircraft to help combat blazes. (Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Shelby Sebens in Portland, Oregon; Editing by Steve Gorman and Eric Walsh)
