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State of emergency declared in Idaho because of fires

In Idaho, crews battling the Lawyer Complex fire near Kamiah said structures, including homes, were damaged or destroyed on private property, but they weren’t sure how many.

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Firefighters in California have made more progress containing a large fire burning just south of another huge blaze, but a wildfire in Washington state has destroyed as many as 100 homes and forced a hospital to evacuate, officials said Saturday.

The wildfire in Napa and Lake counties is burning near the 69,000-acre Rocky Fire, now 99 percent contained, according to CalFire.

Evacuations were also ordered in an Oregon resort on the Warm Springs Indian reservation, as wind gusts spread wildfires. Some use their training to find jobs as firefighters once they are released from prison, says CDCR.

The blaze was yesterday threatening 50 structures, but no homes had been destroyed.

Fork Complex: Multiple fires totalling 30,154 acres in Trinity County south of Hayfork, 32 percent contained.

The causes of the fires remain under investigation.

Widespread droughts and windy conditions are contributing to the fires, according to The Guardian.

“He arrived home with minutes to spare, saving one last item – a police uniform – before the fire claimed the home he’d helped build seven years earlier”, the statement said.

Because of the fire’s severity, Gov. Kate Brown declared it a “conflagration”, which enables more agencies to respond.

Right now fire officials are also watching the current weather.

Wildfires racing through drought-stricken Southern California have burned over three square miles of land and two cabins.

Fire managers say they’ve had some success putting in containment lines on a 340-square-mile fire in the southwest part of the state straddling the Oregon border.

Air Statistics: The two helicopters working on the Buck Horn and Canyon Creek fires yesterday dumped approximately 44,000 gallons of water on the fires. Fires are burning in several national forests, including Glacier National Park, the state’s biggest.

That won’t stop the blaze, and the heavy winds that drove the fire Friday are forecast to continue for four to five days.

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So far, no serious injuries have been reported.

The hottest areas will be places such as Woodland Hills and Burbank, where temperatures could top out at 103 and 98 degrees, respectively, by the weekend, said Stuart Seto of the National Weather Service.

Two fires have charred dry Lower Lake, the most recent burning 38 square miles of thick brush and oak trees in Lake and Napa counties. The federal government has said that it expects to exhaust its firefighting budget by next month.

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“All of the predictions up to now of having a reduced prison inmate population to work the fires have kind of fallen through – because even though we have fewer inmates than we used to have, we still have enough”, Sessa told Capital Public Radio.

LOWER LAKE CA- AUGUST 11 A Cal Fire firefighter stands in front of a burning bush during the Jerusalem Fire along Morgan Valley Road