The blaze that broke out July 22 has destroyed 57 homes and is threatening 2,000 structures.
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Crews contended with blistering temperatures Monday as they tried to beat back a wildfire that burned rural homes and forced hundreds of evacuations in California’s Central Valley, while cooler weather gave firefighters a break as they battled a 10-day-old blaze on the coast. Tod McKay, spokesman for the Bitterroot National Forest, walks by a burned truck and shop at Dave Campbell’s home in Judd Creek Hollow, Tuesday morning, August 2, 2016, in Hamilton, Mont.
A work crew from the California Conservation Corps Butte County Fire Center cuts a line on Black Mountain near the town of Tollhouse, Calif., while fighting a blaze Monday, Aug. 1, 2016.
The blaze took a deadly turn last Tuesday when a bulldozer operator hired by property owners to help battle the flames was killed when his tractor rolled over.
An approximately 2-square-mile blaze that destroyed eight homes and prompted the evacuation of about 140 others in southern Uinta County was 25 percent contained.
Eastern Oregon residents urged to evacuate over the weekend because of a wildfire were allowed to return home.
The blaze has scorched about 273 square miles of brush and grass since it started Saturday night on the U.S. Army’s Yakima Training Center.
Ravalli County authorities ordered residents of about 500 homes to evacuate or prepare to evacuate after the fire began Sunday afternoon southwest of Hamilton.
In neighboring Bridger-Teton National Forest, a fire that has burned about 45 square miles was 81 percent contained.
Authorities said Tuesday that firefighters increased containment to 30 percent.
But it’s been good news for the Sand fire, in Santa Clarita just north of Los Angeles.
The $60,000 yurt that burned is a round, tent-like structure with a dome roof and plastic skin.
Fire information officer Mike Cook says the 200 firefighters working the blaze were trying to hold onto gains made Monday and protect homes.
The Grant County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday night the fire was still burning about 7 miles north of Moses Lake.
It was the second wildfire-related death in California in a week, another person having been found dead in his vehicle in the path of the Sand Fire in Los Angeles County.
Crater Lake National Park remained open as a wildfire grew to more than 400 acres.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation.
But fire lines set overnight and low winds Monday are helping to slow the fire’s progression, said Randall Rishe, a spokesman with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Firefighters continue to make progress on a half-dozen wildfires in northern Nevada.
The fire started Sunday and has burned 5.7 square miles in Bitterroot National Forest.
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In southwest Wyoming, a fire that has burned about 2 square miles near the Utah border is now 36 percent contained.
