After home burned last summer, woman evacuated by Okanogan Complex Fire

The biggest fire burning Monday was in Okanogan County on the border with British Columbia: A group of five fires raging out of control became the largest in state history, fire spokesman Rick Isaacson said.

The Okanogan fires, which have claimed the lives of three firefighters, grew by 2.6 square miles on Monday night and have now burned 403 square miles. “In our district we might see this go clear to the primary of November”.

“We’re used to tall timber and steep territory”, he stated.

Late morning local time on Monday, officials said the complex of fires had burned 256,567 acres, or just over 400 square miles.

Tom Zbyszewski, 20, Richard Wheeler, 31, and Andrew Zajac, 26, died Wednesday when their truck crashed as they tried to escape the fast-growing wildfire and flames consumed their vehicle.

In Montana, fire officials say heavy smoke is hanging over wildfires in the western part of the state, robbing the fires of oxygen and helping firefighters make progress. More than 200 homes have been destroyed, and more than 12,000 homes and thousands of other structures remain threatened.

Qualified citizens – not just professional firefighters – are now invited to join the battle against the blazes, the state Department of Natural Resources said on its webpage. Also, when DNR put out the call for help, from anyone and everyone who thought they could be of assistance, almost 4,000 volunteers stepped up.

Roughly 30,000 firefighters and support personnel have deployed to fight all the wildfires, Eardley said, with contingents from Australia, New Zealand and Canada arriving to help battle the blazes.

Seven hundred members of the Washington National Guard were added to the state-wide firefighting effort Sunday and helicopters from surrounding states were brought in to help.

“It’s a little bit insane around here”, Randy Eardley, a spokesman for the Boise, Idaho-based National Interagency Fire Center, told the Los Angeles Times. The new fire engines are being sent to the Spokane-area mobilization center from Utah, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado.

Coordinators will review the offers and sign up volunteers and contractors, determine where they can help the most and arrange for training if needed.

A 16-year-old inmate on a work gang assigned to the fire, who fled his unit over the weekend with a stolen handgun and later shot himself in the head during a brief standoff with deputies, is being treated at a Seattle hospital, officials said on Tuesday.