1 Killed, 6 Injured on Big Sur Fire Line

A convict firefighter was killed and six others were injured in this scenic coastal recreation area as they battled one of more than 40 major wildfires that continued to burn out of control Monday in the hot, dry West.

More than 11,500 firefighters were on lines in California, Oregon, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska, among them personnel shipped in from Alaska where they were freed up by rains that had quenched several weekend blazes there.

Ann Finklestein, a spokeswoman at the federal Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Ida., said fires burning since the weekend began had charred more than 167,000 acres by nightfall Monday, up from a total of about 115,000 acres Sunday night. Scores of homes and other buildings had been destroyed--49 of them in Boulder Canyon, west of Denver.

At Big Sur, gusting winds, rugged terrain, heavy brush and a lack of access roads hampered the more than 700 firefighters deployed around an arson blaze in and around Molera State Park about 20 miles south of Carmel. Officials said at least 2,600 acres had been blackened by nightfall, with major containment not expected until sometime Wednesday night.

The officials said Antonio Hernandez, 26, who was serving time on a narcotics-possession conviction in San Diego County last November, was killed Sunday night when a fire-weakened tree fell on him and other members of a state Department of Corrections crew from the Galiban Conservation Camp near Soledad. The injuries suffered by six others were said to range from minor scrapes to broken bones.

The accident, which occurred while the crew was cutting a fire line, prompted a decision to limit firefighting operations at night. Fire lines will be staffed, but no new lines will be cut after dark.

“They don’t want to take any more chances,” said Lynda Parks of the state Department of Forestry.

On the other hand, Mike Sanders, a state corrections officer, said that despite the tragedy, the convicts want to continue battling the fire.

“They’re all shook up, but they want to keep fighting,” Sanders said. “All this time, they’ve been losers--druggers, dopers. But when they see a wall of fire and cut the line that stops it, they know they are doing something positive.”

About 300 of the firefighters will be airlifted this morning into the steep back country where the fire is burning, and air tankers and helicopters will continue to bombard the flames with retardants.

To the south, in San Diego County, Department of Forestry officials said a fast-moving mountain blaze apparently ignited by a discarded cigarette was about 10% contained Monday after burning about 4,000 acres in the Cleveland National Forest near Mt. Laguna.

Although no homes were in immediate danger, several residents and dozens of campers in the path of the fire were evacuated.

“Heavy fuel is a problem, and the terrain is really rough,” said Chris Cundari, a fire information officer.

Firefighting operations were complicated Monday when one of the tanker planes being used to drop fire retardant was damaged in a “wheels up” landing at an airstrip in Ramona. No one was injured, but the plane blocked the runway, stranding two other tanker planes on the ground.

In Northern California, almost 1,150 fire personnel continued to work the lines around a blaze that had charred more than 4,600 acres of timberland in the Sierra west of Honey Lake in Lassen County.

The Lassen fire, which broke out Friday, destroyed two mobile homes, a house, a garage, three barns and several sheds and outbuildings. Some residents of Milford, evacuated as the wind-swept flames neared town late Saturday, were back in their homes Monday, and U.S. 395, closed for most of the weekend, was reopened.

A firefighter from the Lassen blaze remained hospitalized at the University Medical Center in Sacramento with burns received over 50% of his body Saturday night when he was trapped in a flare-up. Three others who suffered lesser burns were treated and released.

In nearby Plumas County, gusting winds continued to harass about 600 firefighters working in heavily forested terrain south of Prattville. There were no reports of injury or damaged structures, but more than 4,000 acres had burned since the fire broke out Saturday.

The West’s most devastating blaze, in terms of property damage, was the 1,760-acre Sugarloaf Mountain fire west of Denver, where 42 homes and seven other structures burned Sunday afternoon as flames raced through Boulder Canyon.

At least 200 residents were evacuated Sunday, and scores more were forced to flee Monday as the flames, moving quickly through dry timberland on the eastern slopes of the Rockies, continued to spread.

There were at least two dozen other wildfires in Colorado. In the largest of them, six archeologists joined fire crews to help save Indian artifacts from flames that had burned across 2,350 acres in Mesa Verde National Park. Officials said the archeologists were there to ensure that no Indian sites were disturbed.

The officials said there was no immediate threat to any of the ancient cliff dwellings.

In Nebraska, a fire continued to spread after charring more than 60,000 acres and destroying an undetermined number of ranch and farm buildings. The blaze was contained on the east, north and south, but it broke through fire lines on the west and moved rapidly into rugged, timbered terrain near the town of Crawford.

Patients from a hospital and nursing home in Crawford were evacuated, and several hundred campers were ordered to leave Ft. Robinson State Park, where the fire was started by lightning last week. The fort, established as an cavalry post in 1874, is where Sioux Chief Crazy Horse was killed by Army guards in 1877.

Firefighters from 40 local departments in Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming responded to the fire. Nebraska Gov. Kay Orr ordered in National Guard troops and freed up $500,000 in state funds to pay for a special plane to drop fire retardant over the blaze.

In Utah, fire crews reported they were close to containing a 15,500-acre fire in remote brushland about 20 miles west of the Colorado state line and three other blazes that had blackened a total of about 10,000 acres. A fire that had charred 10,000 acres in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest was reported largely contained Monday, as were blazes totaling about 40,000 acres in eastern Arizona and a 3,500-acre fire in western Wyoming.

In Oregon, crews completed fire breaks around three blazes that had burned about 2,000 acres of pine and fir in the Malheur and Fremont national forests. In Idaho, smoke jumpers were fighting a fire of about 200 acres in the Payette National Forest.

Valarie Basheda reported from Big Sur; Eric Malnic reported from Los Angeles