Five injured as many American provinces batle huge wildfires
WASHINGTON: Crews from multiple states are batling wildfires in Montana, where five firefighters were injured combating one of numerous blazes that have ravaged rural lands and threatened or destroyed homes across the US West.
The nation’s largest wildfire, southern Oregon’s Bootleg fire, was over 40% contained on Saturday as more than 2,200 crew members worked to corral it in the heat and wind, fire officials said. The growth of the sprawling blaze had slowed, but thousands of homes remained threatened on its eastern side, authorities said.
“This fire is resistant to stopping at dozer lines,” Jim Hanson, fire behaviour analyst, said in a news release from the Oregon Department of Forestry. “With the critically dry weather and fuels we are experiencing, firefighters are having to constantly reevaluate their control lines and look for contingency options.”
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for four northern counties because of wildfires that he said were causing “conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property.” The proclamation opened the way for more state support.
Such conditions are oten from a combination of unusual random, short-term and natural weather paterns heightened by long-term, human-caused climate change. Global warming has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years.
On Saturday, fire crews from California and Utah headed to Montana, Governor Greg Gianforte announced. Five firefighters were injured on Thursday when swirling winds blew flames back on them as they worked on the Devil’s Creek fire burning in rough, steep terrain near the rural town of Jordan, in the northeast part of the state.
They remained hospitalised on Friday. Bureau of Land Management spokesperson Mark Jacobsen declined to release the extent of their injuries, and atempts to learn their conditions on Saturday were unsuccessful. Three of the firefighters are US Fish and Wildlife Service crew members from North Dakota, and the other two are US Forest Service firefighters from New Mexico.