Northwest Is Sent Help to Battle Fires
Federal money and firefighters poured into the Northwest on Friday to help fight wildfires that spread over 250,000 acres, destroyed more than 100 homes and claimed five lives.
Officials began tallying the fires’ costs, estimated to be $15 million in Spokane County alone.
Calmer winds, lower temperatures and higher humidity Friday helped firefighters battle more than 50 major fires and scores of smaller blazes.
“I think probably we’ll get quite a few of them contained today,” said Roland Emetaz, a spokesman for the Multi-Agency Command in Olympia. “One of the biggest concerns is keeping the firefighters warm.”
Temperatures dropped into the teens overnight Friday.
More than 6,000 firefighters battled blazes in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Oregon. Some 4,000 were working in Montana, where more than 200,000 acres of timber and brushland burned.
People chased from their homes by the fires continued to return to their singed neighborhoods Friday. Many had lived in shelters in schools since Wednesday, when gusts up to 60 m.p.h. knocked down power lines that sparked many of the fires.
The federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday authorized reimbursement of most firefighting costs in northeastern Washington state, already estimated to be more than $3 million.
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