Firefighters Taming Big Calif. Blaze : Higher Humidity, Less Wind Help; 2nd Man Killed

Encouraged by a break in the low humidity and heavy winds that had bedeviled them for the last week, U.S. Forest Service officials said Saturday that they may be able to contain the most dangerous portions of California’s largest fire as early as this morning.

Meanwhile, the second death of the week-long wave of fires occurred Saturday night when a vehicle carrying 18 members of the California Conservation Corps to a fire site crashed, killing one and seriously injuring six others.

The accident occurred near Ruth Lake in Trinity County, about 200 miles northwest of this Central California city.

Another firefighter was killed last week when he was hit by a motorcycle on the fire lines. Dozens others have suffered minor injuries.

Firefighters Optimistic

The optimism of firefighters focused a few miles north of Tuolumne City, on the 40,000-acre Paper-Cabin fire, which has been threatening a dozen Gold Country communities west of the Stanislaus National Forest border since Tuesday.

By Saturday night, firefighters had formed a line of containment around 70% of the Paper-Cabin fire, according to Forest Service spokesman Dick Wisehart.

“Although we have some momentary setbacks because of increasing winds, generally things are improving,” he said.

Added a California Department of Forestry spokesman: “It’s the first good news in about five days.”

Thousands more acres of forest were lost to flames Saturday, most in the northern half of the state, bringing the total statewide loss to 441,175 acres. However, no new evacuations were required.

15,000 Flee Homes

About 15,000 people have had to at least temporarily flee their homes in the face of the various fires, which have destroyed 32 dwellings, killed two people and injured 57 others. In two of the fires--the Stanislaus blaze and one in Mendocino National Forest--timber valued at $180 million has been destroyed. The cost of fighting the fires throughout the state is estimated at $4 million a day.

In other Western states, about 150,000 acres have been destroyed by fire during the last week. About two-thirds of the damage occurred in Oregon.

The Paper-Cabin fire--about 10 miles west of Yosemite National Park and 100 miles east of San Francisco--is one of four large blazes whose tentacles merged late Thursday and formed a 100,000-acre inferno.

By Saturday, the fire had destroyed 111,250 acres, much of it densely clustered cedar, sugar pine and fir trees. It continued to move northeast toward uninhabited regions of the Stanislaus forest.

Hundreds of firefighters struggled to keep the Paper-Cabin blaze from spreading across Cottonwood Road. If they failed, the fire would bite into 10 miles of timber south of California 108.

In another section of the blaze, firefighters on Saturday scrambled to create a fire line around Yosemite National Park’s Merced Grove of 20 giant sequoias, some of which are thousands of years old. Fire burned within half a mile of them, a National Park Service spokeswoman said.

In a third section, fire came within a few miles of a power supply building of the Hetch Hetchy Water and Power System, which supplies the San Francisco Bay Area. There was no immediate indication of damage.

By Saturday the four-pronged fire had covered a 173-square-mile, L-shaped area, ranging from the edge of Tuolumne City to its northwest and the border of Sierra National Forest to its southeast. It was being fought by 3,592 firefighters from throughout the nation.

In other parts of the state, firefighters continued to struggle with a wave of fires--many of them triggered by lightning strikes--that has been described as the worst in three decades.

In the Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County in the state’s northern end, fires had eaten 79,440 acres, some of it heavy timber.

South of that blaze, in Shasta-Trinity National forest, four groups of fires had consumed 37,082 acres.

And in Mendocino National Forest, a group of fires had consumed 47,000 acres.

1,242 Fires in State

A total of 1,242 fires were burning throughout the state. Of those, 699 fires had been contained. Most of them were small, averaging 50 acres. However there were no estimates of what percentage of those could soon be controlled.

The plague of fires was the result of freakish weather. First, there was an unusually large number of lightning strikes early last week--more than 9,000--that began the blazes. Then, during the ensuing days, the relative humidity dropped to low levels, making the spread of flame even easier.

“We are about to turn the corner pretty quick,” California Department of Forestry spokesman Jim Geiger said Saturday. “We have higher humidity, lower temperatures, lessening winds. It means the firefighters can move more quickly and gain control.”

The National Weather Service continued to predict no significant change in temperatures during the Labor Day weekend. But in some areas firefighters said they were helped by cooler air from ocean breezes. There was a slight chance of thunderstorms but lightning was not anticipated.

About 1,800 regular Army troops were being trained on safety and fire behavior at Ft. Ord in Northern California. They will probably be sent to an 11,800-acre blaze along the Oregon-California border for more training and then put on the lines. Officials said the Army troops will join National Guardsmen working on “cold fire lines” that need reinforcement but are “not necessarily hot-fire situations.

In other Western states:

- Oregon’s blazes covered 105,000 acres. One burned within three miles of Canyonville but was 75% contained. Another came within six miles of Grants Pass but was contained at 3,400 acres. The largest fire, 28,000 acres 25 miles west of Grants Pass, was allowed to burn because of manpower shortage and rough terrain. Of 3,000 people evacuated during the week, all but 1,000 have returned to their homes.

- About a dozen fires covering 13,000 acres in Idaho were mostly under control or contained. A 36-day-old, 18,000-acre fire in a wilderness area east of Cascade was allowed to burn.

- A 4,000-acre fire in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest 50 miles northeast of Phoenix was contained. A 1,300-acre fire across the Colorado River from Needles was contained, and a 25-acre blaze near Payson was out.

- More than 200 firefighters mopped up a 355-acre fire north of Spokane, Wash., while a 2,150-acre blaze near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was extinguished. A total of 6,000 acres had burned.

- A 90-acre fire smoldered in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, but it was not considered a threat.