New Jersey Sending More Firefighters To Battle Western Wildfires

Almost 800 firefighters were trying to beat back the flames.

During the past week, smoke affected air quality in the San Francisco Bay area, and residents have been asked at times to stay indoors.

“An easterly wind direction has transported that smoke west of the Cascades”, the Weather Service said.

This weekend, while the American West glows that weird and terrifying orange of the fire season, consider that it may only look like the apocalypse.

One minute, a crew might have been a safe distance from a fire, and the next at risk as the wind shifted and drove flames toward them.

When helicopters could safely fly, they sometimes found the buckets of water they dumped were blown off target from the hot spots.

All through last week, weather was a key variable on the tactics used by firefighters.

On Friday, facing the fierce gusts, firefighters were in a defensive stance, according to Todd Pechota, the fire’s incident commander. This was his first summer on the fire lines.

Washington’s governor, Jay Inslee, on Thursday called the fires raging across the state “an unprecedented cataclysm”.

“We only have a couple of spare engines left, we have sent so many crews out”, Bellevue Fire Department spokesman Richard Burke said.

“Some have lost homes, I know”, he said. The 31-year-old from South Haven was a seasonal worker who hoped to become a permanent U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighter.

After a week rife with red-flag warnings, Stratton sounded more hopeful.

“It’s been wonderful, the kind of support we’ve gotten from our local community”, he added. These cost-gobbling blazes nearly always flare up near towns, as Washington’s Carlton Complex did a year ago when it blackened 256,000 acres near Pateros and Malott.

A Hialeah family went to great lengths to save their three dogs after their home caught on fire Saturday afternoon.

About 25 miles (40 km) farther south along the same river, emergency officials early on Friday issued additional evacuation orders for parts of Okanogan, a larger town at the western edge of the Colville Indian Reservation, urging evacuees in a Facebook posting “not to wait for door-to-door notification”. “He died doing what he loved doing and he also had the best sense of humor”.

“The fire is still hot on numerous edges”, he said. “But fortunately, the winds are supposed to be favorable today”.

The Chelan wildfires continue to grow and still threaten Chelan. The fires showed no signs of ceasing on Friday, after numerous evacuation orders were called from Thursday night into the morning.

After a week of deadly fires forcing evacuations of whole towns and pushing fire officials to scramble for more help, Saturday was calm.

The fires are about 38 percent contained as of Saturday, officials said.

The conditions could force some 100 residents of Essex to evacuate.

Canadian crews will arrive Sunday to work with existing crews at the northern perimeter of the Stickpin fire within the complex. But, the community is working together to keep everyone safe. Wildfires have destroyed at least 50 homes and 60 other structures in the state this year.

It was a costly and deeply personal battle waged on home turf, with two firefighters battling to save their parents’ home, another defending his in-laws’ house, and another losing 120 acres of his timber to the flames.

Three homes and 20 outbuildings burned, Connolly said. The magazine says fire has not wiped out an entire population or species.

“We were devastated to learn of the death of our beloved husband, son, and brother, Andrew Zajac, 26, while fighting the wildfire near Twisp, Washington on August 19, 2015″.