Yellowstone Fire Crew Hotfoots It to the Dance Floor

Fatigue is taking its toll on some of the hundreds of firefighters straining against blazes in and around Yellowstone National Park. They must work 12- to 16-hour shifts for at least 10 days in a row before getting a day off, and some find themselves on double shifts. So what did Dorothy Hays do Friday night, on only her second day off in the last 50? Instead of taking it easy, she and the rest of her crew traveled 40 miles to go dancing at a tavern. And the next morning, they were back on the lines. “We were getting pretty tired, but the R&R; (rest and recuperation) was real good,” Hays said. “It’s real exciting being out there because you never know what’s going to happen next.” Officials at Yellowstone appealed for private helicopters to help fight the blazes that have claimed more than 400,000 acres. About 1,200 more soldiers are to reinforce the firefighters this week, and Oregon trouble spots were to get help from the National Guard and Canada. U.S. Forest Service spokesman Bob McHugh said: “We just don’t have enough bodies anymore. We’re spread so thin.”

--Five young members of a San Francisco group called Children as Peacemakers left for Moscow on the first leg of a peace mission that will also take a half-mile-long “Banner of Hope” to Leningrad, East Berlin, Belfast and New York. Local children will display the 200-pound banner at each stop. The five, ages 8 to 16, include a girl from Hiroshima, a Vietnamese boat child, two U.S. schoolchildren and a Moscow girl. The banner, created by children in 26 countries, carries the names of young war victims from 45 countries, said group founder Pat Montandon, an adult.

--A sunken hull found in Blackbeard’s hideaway is not part of the pirate’s ship, but the remains of a massive twin-masted vessel that apparently had been abandoned, archeologists said. Richard Lawrence, one of the divers who surveyed the wreck, said it will yield a lot of historical knowledge even if it won’t produce any gold doubloons. The ship, found in a creek that is part of Teach’s Cove in North Carolina, is believed to date from between 1780 and 1820; Blackbeard, or Edward Teach, was captured and beheaded in 1718.