Officials say three firefighters have been killed and three to four others have been injured trying to control a wildfire in Washington state.
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Okanogan (oh-kah-NAH’-guhn) County Sheriff Frank Rogers said Wednesday evening that the deaths in a wildfire near the town of Twisp had been confirmed.
The cause of the fire, which quickly spread across 1,500 acres Wednesday afternoon, wasn’t immediately known, a state fire spokesman said.
Authorities urged people in the north-central Washington towns of Twisp and Winthrop to evacuate Wednesday afternoon because of a fast-moving wildfire, one of many burning throughout the Northwest.
Weather reports indicate high winds and temperatures through Friday, threatening to fuel the fire.
On Tuesday, 200 people in the town of Conconully, also in the same county, were evacuated over the threat posed by wildfires. “The conditions throughout the area remain extremely unsafe and I hope residents and visitors will heed evacuation orders or other emergency directions”, Inslee said in a statement.
The Okanogan Complex wildfire continues to threaten the town, which is located about 20 miles northwest of Omak.
Fires burning in and around the Nez Perce Indian Reservation has consumed 50 homes and 80 outbuildings near the logging town of Kamiah, Idaho, since it was sparked by lightning last week.
More than 30,000 firefighters are working to put out the wildfires, the most in 15 years, according to the U.S. Forest Service. A Washington National Guard soldier uses a flare to burn brush and other materials inside a dirt fire line near a home threatened by the First Creek Fire, Tuesday, August 18, 2015, near Chelan, Wash. “We were lucky to only have about two house within the town limits destroyed”, Goeddes said. Six helicopters and two airplanes assisted fire crews from the air.
More than 70 structures have already been destroyed in Chelan and Douglas counties – among them a cabin on Lake Chelan owned by state Sen.
“It was peaceful and lovely there”, she said.
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She said they would rebuild. “But we’re in the situation now where they’re all just rotating right back in to the next fire”.
