Montana declares state of emergency as U.S. Northwest battles blazes

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Montana declared a state of emergency on Sunday to battle more than a dozen wildfires as blazes, fueled by drought and winds, also raged in Oregon, Idaho and the California wine region north of San Francisco.

Wildfires have destroyed 50 homes in north central Idaho while a fire in north-central Washington nearly doubled in size, almost encircling the town of Chelan and forcing the evacuation of some 1,500.

The Reach fire, sparked on Friday by lightning strikes and high winds, had doubled to 55,000 acres (22,250 hectares) by Sunday, fire incident spokesman Wayne Patterson said.

He said the fire also had started other smaller blazes further north.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/fast-moving-idaho-wildfire-destroys-50-homes-073826196.html

[murielm99]

1. I wish there had been a map with this.

Stay safe, people.

[fredamae]

5. Here:

http://www.arcgis.com/apps/PublicInformation/index.html?appid=4ae7c683b9574856a3d3b7f75162b3f4

It is very scary dry...everywhere.

[Sunlei]

6. wonder how fire situation is in Canada.? Some fires are clustered close to the Canadian borders,

They must have about an equal number of wildfires in Canada near those border clusters?

[fredamae]

7. It's as bad or worse up

there as I have heard. I haven't searched for maps, yet tho. Alaska is on fire so imagine everything in between is vulnerable as well.

[Sunlei]

8. right along the shale lines. I guess the industry uses up near surface water and wildlife are remove

removed so the land never can recover to the pristine condition the land was for thousands and thousands of years.

Climate change doesn't help either.

[fredamae]

10. Canada

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-fires-oliver-firefighters-in-southern-interior-grounded-by-drone-1.3192713
This map is apparently only the big ones
http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/?sensor=modis&extent=canada

[Sunlei]

11. Thank you, Canada has huge forest fires today, same as the USA. We're going to have to plant trees,

A lot of trees.

[murielm99]

12. Thank you. n/t

[ffr]

2. A bit Schadenfreude of me, but the debate is over for red states

Climate change is real and welcome to it. You brought it on yourself. The "debate" you're having is with yourself. It's a debate that only humans are having. No other species is debating it, they're either adapting or dying off.

And if you think fires are terrible, just wait. Humans aren't slowing our output of known greenhouse gases. If fact, we're increasing it. Explain that one off to your kids.

[valerief]

3. It's a good thing red states believe in small government and don't want to take

any federal tax dollars.

What's that? You say they take the MOST federal tax dollars?

Well, ain't that ironic.

[hamsterjill]

4. This is so horrible!

The loss is just unfathomable!

Strength and perseverance to the fire fighters!

[leftyladyfrommo]

9. My brother is in Spokane

They are very concerned. He said the air is smokey. The river is the lowest he can ever remember and it's 80 degrees.

That is just weird. Scary stuff.