Wildfires burned mobile homes, closed highways and forced evacuations from a popular wilderness park Saturday as firefighters worked through scorching heat to contain blazes throughout the West. No injuries were reported.
Lightning sparked about a dozen fires that had charred about 55 square miles in remote northern Nevada, where temperatures in Elko were expected to reach 98 degrees on Saturday.
Catherine Tsai
APWed, 20 Jun 2007 10:38 UTC
White and yellow smoke billowed into the western Colorado sky Tuesday as firefighters battled three wildfires likely sparked by lightning that have burned at least 2,000 acres and forced evacuations of 90 homes.
Reno, Nevada - Gov. Kenny Guinn declared a state of emergency as state and federal crews put practically every available piece of equipment on the lines to combat dozens of lightning-sparked fires that have burned 125 square miles of Nevada.
More than 1,000 firefighters on Wednesday were battling dozens of fires, from a 57,000-acre blaze burning out of control largely in uninhabited rangeland in northeast Nevada to a complex of a dozen smaller fires around Reno and Carson City that forced evacuations at the town of Mound House along the historic Pony Express Trail.
Reno, Nevada - Lightning bolts sparked another half dozen new wildfires that were burning around Reno and Carson City early Tuesday, worsening the damage from blazes that already have consumed about 50,000 acres of northern Nevada.
More than two dozen fires remained active, many out of control, reaching from the heavily timbered western front of the Sierra Nevada near Reno to the sage- and grass-filled rangeland near Elko, 300 miles east.
New Smyrna Beach - Gov. Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency Monday as brush fires burned more than 8,000 acres, destroyed homes and forced authorities to shut down highways.
Officials are tracking about 50 active wildfires throughout the water-parched state, and Bush said lightning was probably not to blame in most cases.
"The likelihood is most of these fires have been created by either negligence or people doing harm," he said.
