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Monday, August 18, 2008

Wildfire news, August 18

Several media outlets are jumping into the suppression or fire use issue. The latest is the Salt Lake Tribune.

The New York Times explores the contractor vs. federal employee issue. Along with others, they point out that of the nine that died in the August 8 helicopter crash, only one was a regular government employee. The other eight were contractors.

Activity on the Gunbarrel fire east of Yellowstone NP is expected to increase over the next few days, due to higher temperatures and lower humidities. This fire use fire, the largest ever in the Rocky Mountain area, has burned 42,148 acres.

A reminder..... the CBS Evening News is expected to run a story tonight, Monday night, about the bear cub that was rescued in a fire in northern California. The piece was scheduled to air August 14, but got bumped due to breaking news stories. HERE is a link to a blog about the bear. OK, so now we have an excuse to run the photo of Lil' Smokey again.


Late breaking news this afternoon--- a vegetation fire has spread to as many as eight homes on the north side of Reno, Nevada. KRNV says the vegetation fire is knocked down but the homes are still burning. A video report is HERE. A photographer wrote this on the KRNV site:
We were over getting ready to cover Wolf Pack football practice when we saw the smoke. Photographer Chuck King and I drove over to investigate and were the first crew on the scene.

I've never seen anything like that fire. It went from two homes to six+ in just minutes. Much credit has to go to the neighbors who were trying to help and the firefighters who risked their lives to keep this disaster as limited as they could.


UPDATE @ 8:25 P.M., August 18
The fire in Reno destroyed six houses and seriously damaged a seventh but only burned two acres. Some juveniles were seen running from the area about the time the fire started. The fire was in the Ridgecrest neighborhood where a fire destroyed four homes and damaged a fifth in 2004. That blaze was started by a pair of boys playing with fireworks.

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