AP News, July 8th, 2007
A fast-growing blaze in southwestern South Dakota killed one person and destroyed 20 homes Sunday, while hundreds of people evacuated homes in the path of a fire in Washington state.
In Nevada, about 1,500 evacuees were allowed home hours after a 39-square-mile wildfire burned into the northern town of Winnemucca, fire officials said Sunday. Meanwhile, more than 200 people were allowed to return to a town in California's dry Sierra Nevada range.
Residents of about 50 homes had fled a wildfire near Hot Springs, S.D., that also injured two firefighters, state and federal officials said. An area of roughly 8 square miles has burned since the fire started Saturday.
The person killed was identified only as a civilian, either a homeowner or visitor to the tourist area on the edge of the scenic Black Hills.
"This is obviously someone who was not part of the firefighting effort," said Gary Chancey, spokesman for Northern Great Plains Joint Information Center in Rapid City.
Lightning was suspected as the cause, since an electrical storm had started smaller fires in the Black Hills and surrounding grasslands this weekend, Chancey said.
The Utah Highway Patrol on Sunday reopened a 100-mile stretch of Interstate 15 and 25 miles of I-70 that were closed when a 250-square-mile fire jumped the highways and filled the air with dense smoke Saturday. Poor visibility was blamed for several accidents, including a motorcycle crash that killed two people.
The fire in central Utah had swept across parts of two counties, charring an estimated 160,000 acres, or 250 square miles, fire information officer LaCee Bartholomew said.
Other Western fires blackened the landscape in Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Montana and Oregon.
The wind-whipped blaze near Winnemucca, Nev., had damaged an unknown number of homes, authorities said. It also shut down Interstate 80, delayed trains and killed livestock. No injuries were reported.
"It was pretty hairy for quite a while, and people thought they would go back to nothing," Humboldt County Undersheriff Curtiss Kull said Sunday. "It was a huge wall of flame coming at the homes. It's amazing that no homes were lost."
It was unknown how much of the fire was contained Sunday, and no estimate was provided on when full containment would be reached, said Jamie Thompson, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
The largest Nevada fires _ one about 25 miles west of Winnemucca and the other near Jackpot along the Idaho line _ had each charred 78 square miles, or 50,000 acres, of open rangeland, officials said. On Sunday, the blaze near the Idaho line was 15 percent contained, and the other was 30 percent contained.
High wind near Wenatchee, Wash., overnight spread a brush fire that threatened homes. By Sunday morning, 250 to 270 homes had been evacuated, and at least three outbuildings were destroyed.
Dangerously dry conditions Sunday stoked several California wildfires.
Quick-moving flames burned through more than 34,000 acres in the Inyo National Forest, skirting the popular John Muir Wilderness north of Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in the lower 48 states.
The blaze was less than 10 percent contained Sunday, though a break in the 60-mph wind and triple-digit temperature gave firefighters a chance to dig in, Inyo National Forest spokesman John Louth said.
"When an ember lands in the sagebrush, there's a 100 percent chance of it catching," said fire information officer Jim Wilkins. "You put a spark on it, it will ignite into fire."
Flames up to 40 feet high threatened major power lines in the area feeding the eastern Sierra front and greater Los Angeles, Wilkins said.
Southern California wildfire in the Los Padres National Forest in Santa Barbara County injured 11 firefighters, including one who suffered a broken leg. The 6,500-acre blaze was threatening 22 homes, said fire information officer Joel Vela.
A 45,000-acre fire in Idaho was contained Saturday, officials said. Crews on Sunday raced to repair fire-damaged transmission lines that threatened rotating power failures.
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jennifer Dobner in Salt Lake City, Martin Griffith in Reno, Nev., Rachel Konrad in San Francisco and Keith Ridler in Boise, Idaho.
