The State - News from Sept. 29, 1987

The West’s largest forest fire continued to grow in Northern California’s Klamath National Forest, but crews hoped to get it contained before much longer. More than 1,200 square miles of forest have been charred in several Western states since lightning storms began igniting blazes in late August. About 5,000 firefighters remained on the lines at the Klamath fire, where 2,000 more acres burned over the weekend to bring the total there to nearly 226,000 acres. In the Siskiyou National Forest, west of Grant’s Pass, Ore., flames of the Silver Complex group of fires jumped the Illinois River and burned 1,500 to 2,500 acres inside the rugged Kalmiopsis Wilderness. Because of high winds and the dryness of the forest, authorities were reluctant to send crews into the wilderness to battle the spreading flames.