South Haven Firefighter Dies While Battling Wildfires in the West

The Case Western Reserve University community is deeply saddened by the death of 2010 graduate Andrew Zajac, one of three firefighters killed Wednesday as wildfires spread in Washington state.

Massive wildfires expanding across arid Washington state have so overtaxed firefighters that the federal government declared an emergency and state officials took the unprecedented step of seeking volunteers to help fight the flames.

In addition to activating the National Guard to fight fires in both states, a reciprocity agreement with Australian fire officials will bring qualified fire line supervisors from down under to the Pacific Northwest in the next several days, Eagle said.

President Barack Obama signed an emergency declaration on Friday, authorizing help from the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

Firefighters from Kittitas and Klickitat Counties have also been sent to Okanogan County to help.

The Okanogan Complex in Washington state has burned numerous structures, but the situation is so chaotic in the huge county that officials have no estimate on how many have burned.

The Carlton Complex fire in 2014 was the largest fire in state history.

Meanwhile, some of the 900 people battling large blaze south of John Day were diverted to contain a new fire burning farther east. A local high school is being used to shelter evacuees.

The evacuations came after three firefighters died and four others were injured battling the fires earlier in the week.

U.S. Highway 2 was reopened to traffic with pilot vehicle escorts. Officials do not have an accurate count of how many homes have been destroyed by the fires. “We are proud to be sending our dedicated and courageous crews”. The fires are threatening more than 5,100 homes. Friday, August 21, 2015, during an afternoon flare-up.

Ing-Moody and her staff elected to stay in Twisp, even after the evacuation order was given.

The South Bend firefighter spent the night in the parking lot after driving seven hours to battle the Twisp fires that claimed the lives of three Washington firefighters.

The fire burning for almost three weeks on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada grew to 60 square miles Friday near Kings Canyon National Park and was bearing down on popular Hume Lake.

In the latest round of evacuations, residents of the Okanogan County community of Malott were ordered Friday morning to leave the area immediately because of an advancing fire, authorities said.

The U.S. Forest Service spends more than a billion dollars each year on suppressing wildfires.

Susan Gregg, a spokeswoman for Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, says Daniel Lyon of Puyallup went through a surgery on Friday that sought to remove damaged tissue. A nearby 7-mile stretch of highway and rail corridor remains closed.

“We anticipate the fire weather today will be worse than it was yesterday”, wildfire incident commander Chris Schulte said Thursday.

Strong winds carried smoke from the blazes in eastern Oregon and Washington across the Cascade mountain range Saturday, prompting air-quality alerts and an influx of 911 calls across the Willamette Valley.

Smoke from wildfires led Colorado officials to expand a health advisory to the northern half of the state.

The heavily populated Denver-Fort Collins area was included in the advisory, along with cities ranging from Grand Junction, near the state’s western border, to Julesberg, in the northeast corner.