Fires Burn Paths Across Western U.S.

Hundreds of residents driven from their homes by smoke and flames were allowed to return for a few hours Sunday as firefighters made progress against dozens of wildfires burning in the Northern Rockies.

From his house on a mountain ridge about a mile and a half from a 3,600-acre wildfire, Bill Holzer can see the flames and their path of destruction.

“When it clears and you have some visibility, you can see the mountains around Blodgett Creek just devastated,” Holzer said Sunday. “There is nothing green left. The trees are just black sticks.”

Helicopters and bombers preparing to drop chemical flame retardant have been flying over his rooftop for days. The forecasts Sunday offered little hope of relief from the hot, dry weather that has helped create what officials have called the worst fire season in the West in 50 years.

The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, listed 64 major fires burning Sunday on 941,700 acres in California, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

Fires had blackened 62,000 acres near Holzer’s home in southwestern Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, and more than 1,200 firefighters were at work.

About 300 residents ordered to evacuate as the Blodgett Creek fire neared their homes Wednesday were allowed to check their property Sunday. At the same time, another 300 people near Pinesdale, about 10 miles north of Hamilton, were told they might have to leave.

About 30% of the Blodgett blaze had been contained by fire lines, but there was no containment for a 42,000-acre fire at the south end of the Bitterroot Valley.

Near Temecula, Calif., fire crews grew closer to completing a ring around a 10,626-acre blaze that started on the Pechanga Indian Reservation.

Firefighting officials expect the blaze, which went from 25% containment Saturday to 45% containment Sunday, and the 73,343-acre Manter fire in the southern Sierra Nevada to be fully contained by Thursday.