Fires Rage in Worst Season in 3 Decades

A plague of fire continued its unchecked course through the brush and timberland of California on Friday, driving at least 15,000 people from their homes, blackening nearly 600 square miles of watershed and closing campgrounds to Labor Day vacationers.

The largest fire, a 100,000-acre blaze threatening the Tuolumne City and Groveland communities, was still out of control and moving in the direction of Yosemite National Park, where a separate fire was already burning near Cherry Creek.

Fires were also out of control in Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, South Dakota and Washington.

Army Training Firefighters

Authorities called it the worst fire season in the nation in three decades, and the Army said it will give 1,000 soldiers a one-day training course and send them to reinforce the nearly 20,000 firefighters already on the line.

“This is one of the worst fire situations that we have had in more than 30 years in these states,” Forest Service Director Dale Robertson told a news conference in Washington. In Boise, Ida., George Leonard, associate chief of the U.S. Forest Service, predicted, “They will be fighting some of them until the snow flies.”

Robertson said the Army had agreed to send troops from Ft. Ord in California and Ft. Lewis in Washington through a crash course in forest firefighting techniques--and then send them to “hot spots” as needed to reinforce firefighters already on the scene in all eight Western states.

California Hit Hardest

But California’s fires covered more acreage than all the others combined.

In Tuolumne County, the most populous area hit by the lightning-spawned fires, Mike Milosch of the U.S. Forest Service said homes have burned and about 7,500 people have been evacuated from the path of four fires that merged late Thursday to become a 100,000-acre holocaust.

“It is far from stable,” said Kenton Clark, regional incident commander for the U.S. Forest Service. “We’re now well into 350,000 acres for the entire state and it will hit 500,000 before it levels off. What we need is a good rainstorm.”

Clark said the fires in Stanislaus National Forest are still the region’s top priority “until it becomes stable there.

“We’re looking at a steady week’s activities, maybe two,” he said. “What we are trying to do is suppress these fires and then we can free the resources here to fight other fires.”

“It kind of takes your breath away . . . just the sheer size and effort of it,” said Agriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyng, who was vacationing in Modesto and met Friday with forestry officials at one of the command posts in Buck Meadows. “Nationally, I don’t think we’ve ever had anything like this. I hope we are going to get it under control.”

Costs Estimated

Assistant Agriculture Secretary George Dunlop said that by the time all fires in California are out they will have cost about $20 million to suppress and “hundreds of millions of dollars in lost natural resources.

“The livelihood of communities are at stake,” said Dunlop, who flew in from Washington for a two-day field trip of the Western states to assess the extent of the disaster. “If it gets into the redwoods you’re talking national treasures being destroyed. I think that is part of the reason people here are fighting so hard to contain it.”

On Friday, hundreds of firefighters were backfiring the forest ahead of the fire east of Tuolumne City to prevent its spread to several communities south of California 108, said Irl Everest, spokesman for the Forest Service.

Dick Wisehart, another spokesman, said that only about 17 miles of the 90-mile perimeter of the fire were successfully held back with back fires and bulldozer lines. The merged fire, ranging from Tuolumne City to the northern border of the Sierra National Forest, was 27 miles wide, Wisehart said.

Backfires were started south of Cottonwood Road, a Forest Service road northeast of Tuolumne City.

‘In Serious Trouble’

“This is one of the last control lines we have before it goes up to (California) 108,” said Richard Imlach, California Department of Forestry field observer at the scene. “If it goes into high fuels--the upper parts of the trees--it will jump the road and we will be in serious trouble because there is no road between here and 108.”

Thus far, one firefighter has been killed and 51 people have been injured fighting the fires, and Forest Service investigator George Roby said that figure almost took a violent upswing Friday.

He said enveloping and inescapable flames forced 48 firefighters to use their fireproof shelter bags to save themselves in three separate incidents while fighting the fire near Tuolumne City.

“None required hospitalization,” he said. “But it was a near thing--and if they hadn’t had the protective equipment . . . “

Evacuations of areas to the northeast of Tuolumne City, near Twain Hart, were expanded Friday, and Mary Hale of the Forest Service in Sonora said the fires are burning north and east, generally in the direction of Yosemite National Park.

Inside the park, another lighting-caused fire consumed 100 acres in the Cherry Lake area, six miles west of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which is the main source of water for the San Francisco Bay Area.

Threatens Sequoias

Park Service spokeswoman Mallory Smith said the fire came within one mile of the Merced and Tuolumne groves of Giant Sequoias in Yosemite National Park before fire lines could be constructed to contain it, but by early evening the trees were no longer in immediate danger.

A fire in the Plumas National Forest, threatening the towns of Milford and Doyle, raced seven miles in two hours, forcing evacuation of about 1,000 people from both communities.

In Klamath National Forest, seven groups of fires have burned 65,000 acres, much of it prime timber--part of the estimated 200 million board feet that have been consumed statewide, which officials said represents about 15% of the amount offered for sale annually in California by the Forest Service.

In Shasta-Trinity National Forest, four groups of fires have blackened 35,000 acres of prime timber, and in the Mendocino National Forest, a group of fires has ravaged 45,000 acres near Lake Pillsbury, where about 500 people have been evacuated.

Fire on Mt. Baldy

And in Los Angeles County, the Forest Service closed the Chantry Flats trail head to Mt. Wilson for the weekend because of an 85-acre brush fire near Mt. Baldy Village, which was touched off by an automobile accident in which one person died. Mt. Baldy road was also closed for about five hours, but reopened at 6 p.m. By late evening, the blaze was contained but not yet fully controlled.

John Carter of the California Fire Information Center in Sacramento said there were a few hopeful signs.

“Currently,” he said, “the number of fire starts are slowing down. Thank goodness.”

Carter said the lightning strikes have almost stopped, and those reported overnight did not hit timber areas. “We are optimistic,” he said, “but because of current strong winds, existing fires are being fanned and getting bigger. Hopefully, if the winds die down, we can hook (surround) these fires.”

Little Hope Held Out

But the National Weather Service held out little hope. Weather conditions, the forecasters said, should continue much the same for the next few days. The onset of the Labor Day weekend, which usually lures hundreds of thousands to forests for a last bout of summer camping, has prompted fire officials to close some national forests in California entirely and warn would-be campers to consider other plans or to at least check ahead.

“It’s not a good time to go to the mountains for the holiday weekend,” said Tom Kuekes, a spokesman for Sequoia National Forest. “It would be better to think about something else.”

Bob Swinford of the Forest Service’s regional headquarters at San Francisco offered a list of the weekend situation for campgrounds in the fire areas:

- All camping and other facilities in Yosemite National Park are open except for Hodgdon Meadow and Crane Flat campgrounds. People with Ticketron reservations for Hodgdon campground should use the Tuolumne Meadows campground on Tioga Road.

Spokeswoman Vicki Lawson said California 120 into the park from the west was closed because of the Stanislaus fires, but 120 east was open as were California 140 and 41.

“Motorists are advised to drive with their headlights on due to smoke on the roadways,” she added. “Visitors with respiratory problems are advised to use caution when visiting Yosemite at this time.”

- All of Stanislaus National Forest is closed because of the region’s worst series of lightning-caused fires.

- The Hat Creek area of Lassen National Park is closed, and Joe Silva, fire information officer, said the closure involves everything in the forest east of California 89 and north of California 44, including Honn campground and Bridge day use area.

- A Forest Service spokeswoman said the 60 campgrounds in Sierra National Forest were “completely open.”

- Most roads and facilities in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks also remained open for the holiday weekend, and Park Service spokeswoman Jan E. Knox said the only closure was at Eshom Creek.

- And spokeswoman Lori Robbins said almost half the camping areas in Sequoia National Forest were closed, including Lower Peppermint, Panorama and Frog Meadow campgrounds on the Hot Springs District, Alder Creek and Evans Flat on the Greenhorn District.

Winds Fan Oregon Fires

In Oregon, the worst fires were in the southwest corner of the state. A blaze near Myrtle Creek in Douglas County spread to 8,800 acres, fanned by erratic winds that continued to cause problems into the afternoon.

“About all you could do was watch it,” said Gene Johnson of the Roseburg Fire Department. “It just took off.”

Four firefighters battling the 6,900-acre Sykes Creek forest fire near Medford were injured Thursday night when they were struck by a boulder that tumbled down a smoldering canyon. One man was carried out by stretcher and remained hospitalized for observation Friday. Authorities said the other three were treated and released.

Professional climbers were used in the rescue operation, since smoke, darkness and the steep terrain precluded the use of helicopters.

On Bilger Creek, six miles northeast of Myrtle Creek, flames leaped from the ridge tops Thursday afternoon while people who had refused to leave fought to save their property.

Officials to the south in Jackson and Josephine counties said cooler temperatures and relatively calm wind provided some relief.

‘Big Breather’

“The big breather here is the weather,” Jackson County Sheriff C. W. Smith said. “We just hope and pray it doesn’t kick up to where it starts pushing those fires around.”

Smith said the Savage Creek fire southeast of Grants Pass, which sent scores of residents streaming out of the smoke-filled gulches Wednesday, was holding relatively steady at 3,500 acres. He said 80% of the fire had been trailed and residents were being allowed back into the area at their own risk.

Another fire called the Longwood Complex on the Oregon-California border south of Cave Junction remained at 7,000 acres, said Mike Underwood of the Siskiyou National Forest. It was made up of several fires that had burned together.

Underwood said the Longwood fire damaged at least eight structures south of the remote community of Takilma earlier in the week, but fire officials did not expect any problems in that area Friday.

State officials said 2,700 people in about 1,300 homes in Jackson, Josephine and Douglas counties were evacuated Wednesday.

Gov. Neil Goldschmidt mobilized 260 members of the National Guard, swelling the number of firefighters and support crews to nearly 4,000.

Aid Firefighters

About 80 guardsmen have already been driving trucks in the firefighting effort in Douglas County since Monday.

In Idaho, cooler temperatures and increased humidity helped firefighters contain or control many of the state’s 26,000 acres of fires Friday, but the state’s largest forest fire was still burning.

The 2,700-acre range fire near Pocatello that forced the evacuation of 1,000 residents and destroyed a $200,000 home Sunday was declared controlled Thursday night, but the Rock Canyon fire, which began Wednesday in the Sawtooth National Forest, had grown to 10,000 acres by Friday morning.

Forest Service spokesman Art Sellin said 13 fire crews from five Western states have joined the 150 Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management firefighters battling the blaze, bringing the total to 350 workers. No containment time was set for the human-caused blaze 30 miles south of Twin Falls.

Idaho’s largest forest fire of the season, the Deadwood Summit fire in the west-central mountains, spread another 200 acres to 18,200 acres by Friday morning, but officials said the blaze appeared to be slowing.

A Forest Service spokesman said it is being allowed to burn itself out unhindered in the wilderness, in order to save firefighting costs.

Elsewhere, acreages were less immense.

In Arizona, a fire in the Tonto National Forest 50 miles northwest of Phoenix spread to 4,000 acres, but rains overnight helped contain it. In South Dakota, a prairie fire started by lightning that had burned 1,500 acres on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation continued for the second day.

More than 200 firefighters were mopping up a 355-acre fire north of Spokane, Wash., six fires that had burned 725 acres in central Montana were been brought under control Thursday night, and in Wyoming, a 90-acre fire continued to smolder in Yellowstone National Park but it was not considered a threat.

Imbert Matthee reported from Tuolumne City and Ted Thackrey Jr. from Los Angeles. Also contributing to this story was Times staff writer Tamara Jones in southwestern Oregon.