<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Friday, March 29, 2024
March 29, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Southern Utah wildfire grows

The Columbian
Published: June 29, 2016, 11:12am

FORESTHILL, Calif. — A southern Utah wildfire continues to grow, more than two weeks after it was started by lightning.

The blaze near Pine Valley has so far torched about 2.4 square miles of rugged terrain.

It had previously forced evacuations and while those have been lifted, people could be asked to leave again.

The Pine Valley Recreation Area in the Dixie National Forest remains closed.

The fire started June 13 with a lightning strike on Saddle Mountain.

——

9:10 a.m.

A county fire marshal is refusing to make public radio dispatches and computer logs related to a destructive wildfire that charred 28 square miles in central New Mexico.

The Albuquerque Journal asked to review the information amid unconfirmed reports that the fire was called in hours earlier than has been reported and that efforts to control the flames were slow.

The human-caused fire was sparked June 14 and within two days had raced across 25 square miles, forcing evacuations of communities along the eastern edge of the Manzano Mountains southeast of Albuquerque.

A dozen homes and numerous other structures were destroyed.

The newspaper reports that Bernalillo County Fire Marshal Chris Gober denied the request, saying he and the U.S. Forest Service didn’t want to release anything that might hinder the investigation into the cause of the fire.

——

7:40 a.m.

Firefighters are bolstering lines around a blaze that had forced evacuations and the intermittent closure of a major interstate in central Arizona.

Crews were mopping up Wednesday after the blaze came close to homes in the Cordes Lakes area.

Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Dolores Garcia says crews hit the fire hard from the ground and with water-dropping helicopters and air tankers to keep the flames contained on the east side of Interstate 17.

It’s considered halfway contained. The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office lifted evacuation orders overnight, and most of the interstate was open.

In the Tonto National Forest, officials are monitoring a few small lightning-sparked fires. Crews also made progress on several blazes caused by lightning in the Coronado National Forest earlier this week.

mobile phone icon
Take the news everywhere you go.
Download The Columbian app:
Download The Columbian app for Android on Google PlayDownload The Columbian app for iOS on the Apple App Store

——

7:30 a.m.

At least 100 homes in Northern California have been evacuated as a wildfire charged through inaccessible terrain and climbed out of a steep canyon along the middle fork of the American River.

People living in a rural subdivision 50 miles northeast of Sacramento fled Tuesday as firefighters braved triple-digit temperatures to battle the blaze.

Placer County sheriff’s spokeswoman Dena Erwin says homes near Todd Valley between the cities of Foresthill and Auburn were evacuated as the fire quickly grew to roughly 300 acres.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Daniel Berlant tells Sacramento station KCRA-TV (http://bit.ly/299QJlK ) that the evacuations were called because the community only has one way in and one way out.

No injuries or damage had been reported by Wednesday morning.

——

6:45 a.m.

A growing network of online cameras installed on forested mountaintops is changing the way crews fight fires by allowing early detection that triggers quicker, cheaper and more tactical suppression.

The network of roughly 20 high-definition cameras being installed around the Lake Tahoe region can pan, tilt and zoom into fires. They can rotate 360 degrees. And the cameras even have night vision, to supplement human lookouts that only work during daylight hours.

Fire officials say the cameras will augment — and not replace — human fire spotters who climb high towers armed with only a radio and binoculars, scanning the forest for faraway smoke.

They hope to install the internet-ready cameras throughout California and other Western states.

Loading...