“How do families of firefighters do it?!”
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While Montana is ranked as high priority for firefighting resources, Washington state and Oregon have the highest priority due to more people and private property being at risk, Sloan said.
“We as a national firefighting community are spread very thin”, Eardley said.
The trend of an increasing number of large wildfires is taxing the nation’s capabilities to efficiently put out the blazes.
The many agencies tasked with combating wildfires coordinate through the National Interagency Fire Center.
The House passed a bill last month that would let the Forest Service tap into federal disaster funds when its firefighting budget is empty.
The chief of the U.S. Forest Service and Gov. Kate Brown are visiting the wildfire south of John Day in Eastern Oregon where authorities now say 36 homes were destroyed.
“It’s all hands on deck”, he said.
Numerous smaller fires have been contained.
Editors who used BC-US-Wildfire Funding, sent August 14 and datelined in Denver, are asked to use the following story. The second largest, the Eustis fire, is burning more than 9,000 acres, near Townsend.
Fire officials say that over the weekend smoke from the fire drifted into the San Francisco Bay Area and especially east of the city, where it was trapped in valleys for several days, causing hazy skies and breathing difficulties for some.
On Monday, the Cabin Creek Fire, 12 miles southeast of Dillon, was listed at 60 percent contained, with 900 acres burning – down from 1,400 acres on Saturday.
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“These changes are often driven by multiple factors, including changes in temperature and drought patterns, wildfire, invasive species and pests”, the report said.
