Wildfires continue to burn across California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Montana today. Hurricane-force winds and high temperatures kicked up wildfires across parts of the Pacific Northwest over the holiday weekend, burning hundreds of thousands of acres.
In California, helicopters were needed to rescue more than 200 people trapped by the fast moving blazes over labor day weekend. An additional 164 were choppered out of Sierra National Forest today. The smoke from the California fires could be seen as far away as Las Vegas.
In Washington, a wind driven fire destroyed most of the town of Malden in the eastern part of the state and forced evacuations in Oregon. A fire burning near Davenport, Washington, grew to 70,000 acres by Tuesday morning and was 0% contained, according to the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Washington Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz said on Twitter that about 300,000 acres had burned so far. “As of this morning, we have 9 large fires,″ Franz tweeted on Tuesday. “We had 58 new wildfire starts in the last 24 hours.″
In Oregon, thousands of people were without power as crews battled large fires in Clackamas County on Tuesday morning. Over 40,000 people south of Portland were without power. In Marion County, which includes the state capitol of Salem, a blaze prompted evacuation orders Tuesday in the western foothills of the Cascade Range.
A fire near Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, more than tripled in size over the Labor Day weekend and had consumed almost 140 square miles by Monday afternoon as it moved through rugged terrain with lots of dead trees that had been killed by beetles, fire spokesperson Ronda Scholting said. The fire was only 4 percent contained. “You can’t stop it in that steep country,” she said.
Related: 2 Million Acres Burned in California
Montana officials hope a bout of cooler weather, with snow forecast, will help them tamp down the Bridger Foothills Fire burning in timber northeast of Bozeman. It started Friday and spread across more than 11 square miles (28 square kilometers) over the weekend amid warm and windy conditions. The BobCat Fire started last week southeast of Roundup and charred more than 46 square miles. It burned at least 10 structures and grew by several square miles Sunday.