Western wildfires: Wind, heat, dry land fueling large blazes

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

Winds in the West are helping stoke wildfires sweeping across the Northern Rocky Mountains, Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, posing problems for firefighters trying to contain the flames fed by drought.

Weather was expected to worsen fires in some areas, as the federal government said it will exhaust its firefighting budget next month. Here's a look at blazes in Western states:

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OREGON

Two large fires in Oregon have burned through buildings and forced evacuations as strong winds pick up, sending guests of a resort fleeing.

A fire on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in rural central Oregon exploded to more than 50 square miles Friday, forcing evacuations of a rural subdivision and a resort that had 400 guests booked Thursday night.

FULL story at link. Video: http://launch.newsinc.com/share.html?trackingGroup=92351&siteSection=bigstory_hom_non_non_dynamic_wire_ap&videoId=29548646



Garden Valley firefighter Chris Schwegler walks by flames along Morgan Valley Road near Lower Lake, Calif., Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015. Crews battling the wind-stoked blaze took advantage of cooler temperatures Thursday to clear brush and expand containment lines with bulldozers and hand tools. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/5000203a276f46b3aec534fd9c48dfac/western-wildfires-resort-evacuated-dry-rural-oregon

[Shrike47]

1. It's hot, it's dry and it's flammable. That's Oregon this year.

[mentalslavery]

2. It totally sucks out here

Air is constantly filled with smoke across all of washington state.

[potone]

3. Hush now.

You might encourage people to believe that global warming is real! And we can't have that, can we?

[mentalslavery]

7. Right

get pissed with the deniers every time this happens

[nruthie]

4. All the fault of the liberals.

According to the right-wing nuts out here in Oregon. What drought? Blame it on the nasty Forest Service....or Obama.

[Backwoodsrider]

5. once the rain starts all will be good

Strong El Nino is a near guarantee of strong rains however, looking at the forecast those promised rains are sometime in the future and right now we got some warm, windy, low humidity days lined up. Hope everyone is able to stay safe. especially the firefighters, one of the most dangerous jobs out there.

[uppityperson]

6. parts of Chelan evacuated due to new fires last couple days from lightning.

Poor Chelan, watching the Wolverine fire uplake, and then having multiple lightning strikes and fires going into town.

I found this blog, seems to be good coverage from a retired fire fighter.
http://wildfiretoday.com/2015/08/14/five-fires-in-chelan-washington-area-evacuations-ordered/

Good vids and photos at this link
http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/wildfires/2015/08/14/lightning-sparked-wildfires-force-evacuations-chelan-county/31715635/

http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2015/aug/14/chelan-still-center-firestorm/



Official gov fire website
http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4354/

[mentalslavery]

8. yeah, we get smoke in spokane for dayz from these blazes

and that just sensitizes me to how bad it is for others

[PasadenaTrudy]

9. Pasadena reeks of smoke

Going up to 101 today. Fun times.