Fires Raging Across West Strain Resources

Wildfires continued to rage Thursday across California, as four firefighters recovered from second-degree burns after being overtaken by a blaze on the Pechanga Indian Reservation near Temecula.

Two of the California Department of Forestry workers were reported in serious condition Thursday. On Wednesday they suffered the first serious firefighter injuries reported in the current siege.

The four made up a fire engine crew among those charged with protecting 20 to 30 homes in the Woodchuck Campground area from the 5,722-acre Pechanga blaze by cutting brush and spraying structures with foam, fire information officer Joanne Evans said.

The fire is among dozens burning in the West that have stretched the nation’s firefighting resources so thin that federal officials were considering bringing in crews from Mexico and logistics and technical experts from Australia. Firefighters from 46 states have already been deployed around the West.

California’s biggest blaze, a 72,228-acre fire mostly in Sequoia National Forest on the east side of the southern Sierra, was 54% contained Thursday, officials said.

“We face a very serious and difficult firefighting situation across the western United States,” said Jim Lyons, undersecretary for natural resources and environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service.

The conditions include high temperatures, low humidity and dry lightning with potential to ignite new fires from the Sierra Nevada to the northern Rockies, he said.

Although an investigation will be conducted into the injuries in the Pechanga fire, Evans said procedures intended to keep crews safe appeared to have been followed.

“From what I understand this fire came so fast it was just unbelievable,” she said. “When you get downdrafts, they can take the fire and shoot it down a hill in a second almost.”

The fire engine was damaged in the flare-up, Evans said, but no homes are known to have been damaged in the blaze, about 40 miles north of San Diego.

Two firefighters were flown by helicopter to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, where nurse Lydia Moore said they were in serious condition Thursday. She did not know whether their injuries were life-threatening.

The other injured firefighters--a 21-year-old with second-degree burns on 2% of his body and a 24-year-old burned over 10% of his body--were sent by ambulance to Inland Valley Regional Medical Center in Wildomar. They were later transported to Arrowhead, where Moore said they were in fair condition Thursday.

The fire, which nearly 1,700 people were fighting, was 15% contained Thursday, with full containment expected next Thursday, Department of Forestry spokeswoman Jeaneen Gardner said.