Humidity Helps Firefighters in N. California

A damp Tuesday morning that had firefighters shivering provided the break they needed to get the jump on a 77,000-acre fire threatening 400 structures around Northern California’s Clear Lake.

“The early morning humidity was an aid to us,” spokesman David Weitz said. “Firefighters are somewhat optimistic this morning.”

The blaze was one of dozens around the West that had crews scrambling in one of the earliest and fiercest fire seasons in years.

Six hundred soldiers from Ft. Carson, Colo., joined 3,176 firefighters from across the country to battle against the “Fork Fire,” which was threatening eight communities surrounding the Clear Lake resort area.

In the Sierra Nevada, four lightning-ignited fires continued to threaten 22 historic homesteader cabins in Yosemite National Park and several reforested areas.

Near San Luis Obispo, a wildfire roared through Los Padres National Forest, where it destroyed a cabin that biologists used to monitor captive-bred condors released into the wild.

In southwestern Colorado, archeologists and firefighters worked side by side to protect a visitors center and Far View Lodge as a wildfire atop Mesa Verde National Park swelled to 4,000 acres.

Workers were removing valuable artifacts from the visitors center as winds threatened to whip the fire toward the museum.

In Miles, Wash., crews contained a wildfire that burned 550 acres of scattered timber, grass and brush on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Authorities believed it was started by an unattended campfire.