20,000 Battle Western Wildfires

Nearly 20,000 firefighters battled wildfires across the West on Wednesday as federal authorities promised more military reinforcements and tens of millions of dollars in emergency funds.

“One wave has crashed, but we can see the next one coming,” said Don Smurthwaite, spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.

A short stretch of cooler and sometimes rainy weather helped firefighters make progress on fires burning across 490,188 acres in Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, and Montana, Smurthwaite said.

But more than 37,000 lightning strikes since Monday across western Montana, eastern Idaho and Wyoming had crews working to put out new fires before they grow.

After visiting firefighters in northeastern Oregon, U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said firefighter morale was high and coordination between state and federal agencies was effective, but people and equipment were reaching their limits.

Babbitt said the government hopes to bring in more Canadian firefighting crews and is considering mobilizing a Marine battalion stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., to join 500 U.S. Army mountain troops from Fort Carson, Colo., already fighting fires.

Babbitt told NBC’s “Today” show that he intends to recommend that President Clinton seek additional emergency firefighting funds from Congress amounting to tens of millions of dollars.

Washington

Firefighters got the upper hand Wednesday on a stubborn grass and timber fire that has consumed 15,000 acres on the Colville Indian Reservation in north central Washington.

Calm winds, a sprinkling of rain and fresh crews aided the fight against the Timberline fire, which began Saturday.

The fire, now 90 percent contained, is three miles east of Omak and north of Washington 155.

Full containment was expected by this afternoon.

There were 860 people assigned to the fire, including 480 on the fire line, aided by a dozen bulldozers, Forest Service spokesman Mark DeLeon said.

No structures were threatened. The fire, believed to be humancaused, is under investigation.

In Chelan County, the Forest Service was monitoring a 70-acre wildfire burning in alder brush and fir trees deep within the Glacier Peak Wilderness, said Marshall Haskins, fire management officer for the Chelan Ranger District.

The Old Guard fire, burning 17 miles west of Stehekin, is not being actively fought. The Forest Service expects the fire to be contained by glaciers and creeks and extinguished by fall rains at less than 120 acres.

Idaho

More than 300 federal, state and local firefighters took advantage of a second day of relatively cool weather Wednesday to keep a fire that started in the Boise Foothills from spreading much beyond an estimated 12,000 acres.

The suspected human-caused Eighth Street Fire started in the cheatgrass- and sagebrush-covered foothills on the northern edge of Boise and charred one luxury home Monday night, then turned northeast into the Boise National Forest. Tuesday afternoon winds caused flareups but no major runs.

Meanwhile, 120 firefighters were on the 7,000-acre Elba Fire that continued burning in south-central Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest. The crews included some of the 160 minimum- and community-custody state prison inmates fighting fires throughout Idaho.

Some of those prisoners were assigned to the scores of fires started by a lightning storm that roared through central and eastern Idaho Tuesday night.

The largest of those blazes had blackened 10,000 acres of grass and brush by Wednesday about 30 miles south of Arco. A 100-acre fire also burned a hillside near the Idaho Falls-area community of Iona and threatened more than a dozen homes before being stopped by firefighters and homeowners.

Elsewhere, crews were able to stop a 12,000-acre fire in the Kuna area southeast of Boise. It burned into irrigated fields and was not spreading.

Montana

The Coyote Gulch blaze east of Big Timber and north of Reedpoint grew by about 600 acres overnight Tuesday to about 4,200 acres, burning in tall grass, sagebrush, juniper and ponderosa pine.

But 200 firefighters were battling the blaze Wednesday as cooler weather arrived from the West, and the fire was 50 percent contained. Fire managers predicted full containment on Friday.

The 140-acre Telephone Butte II fire, 12 miles west of Missoula, showed no expansion overnight Tuesday and was 75 percent contained. Fire managers hoped for full containment by Wednesday and control by Friday. Nearly 300 firefighter are working the blaze.

On the Montana-Idaho border near Darby, the large Swet-Warrior complex of fires stood at 35,937 acres Wednesday, only a little larger than on Tuesday.

Oregon

Scattered showers overnight helped keep in check Oregon wildfires that are burning across more than 150,000 acres.

“The fires are looking pretty good from overnight,” said Patti Ann Monzie, spokeswoman for the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland on Wednesday. “Almost every one got moisture or high humidity or even some rain on some of them.”

The Tower, Bull and Summit fires have burned nearly 95,000 acres in largely dead and dying timber on the Umatilla and Malheur national forests, destroying three summer cabins. They were about 40 percent contained Wednesday.

Bend residents who were evacuated over the weekend as the Skeleton Fire approached were allowed to return to their homes Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Gov. John Kitzhaber called out more Oregon National Guard troops Tuesday to help fight wildfires. The 184 Guardsmen activated in this round join 616 soldiers already on the fire lines.

Lightning strikes early Tuesday started 39 new fires on U.S. Bureau of Land Management rangeland in southeastern Oregon.