KING TV
Flames leap into the air from the Taylor Bridge wildfire in Washington state on Aug. 14.
By NBC News and wire services
Wildfires raged in several Western states on Tuesday, destroying dozens of homes and threatening hundreds more. In Idaho, one firefighter was killed by a falling tree.
A fire in central Washington grew nearly tenfold overnight and destroyed more than 60 homes, NBC affiliate KING of Seattle reported.
Anne Veseth, a 20-year-old who was in her second season as a firefighter, was killed Sunday as she worked a fire near Orofino, Idaho, the U.S. Forest Service told The Associated Press. Her older brother also is a wild-land firefighter in Idaho, where 12 blazes are burning.
"The Forest Service is devastated by the loss of one of our own," Forest Supervisor Rick Brazell told the AP.
Officials were investigating the death, which came on the same day that another firefighter narrowly escaped a wildfire in southeastern Oregon.
That firefighter was forced to deploy her emergency shelter in an area overrun by wind-whipped flames. She suffered minor burns to a leg and forearm and minor smoke inhalation.
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The rest of her 20-person federal crew made it to a safety zone and was pulled off the fire. The blaze scorched about 653 square miles in remote terrain straddling Oregon and Nevada, where five ranches in the Kings River Valley were evacuated.
A crew in central Washington state also barely outran flames at a wind-driven fire in Kittitas County. The firefighters managed to drive to safety as they got ahead of the Taylor Bridge fire, said Richelle Risdon, a county fire spokeswoman.
That wind-whipped fire, burning in rugged terrain near Cle Elum grew from 2,800 acres to more than 26,000 acres in a matter of hours overnight, KING reported.
The drought that's gripping much of the country is costing farmers thousands, and even millions, of dollars. KUSA's Megan Fitzgerald reports.
As of Tuesday morning, it had destroyed more than 60 homes and another 450 homes were evacuated as winds shifted northeast, blowing toward several pockets of homes and subdivisions.
With the wind howling late Monday, the fire quickly burned through rugged timber, crowning in trees and glowing across ridge lines.
There is no containment line around the fire yet.
Firefighters from around the state were called in to help regional firefighters and the Department of Natural Resources, KING reported.
Officials said no injuries had been reported so far. Washington Department of Natural Resources spokesman Mark Grassel told The AP that the fire crept within six miles of the nearby city of Ellensburg, though crews were able to stop its advance.
Some property at a chimpanzee sanctuary outside Cle Elum burned but the animals were uninjured, Diana Goodrich of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest told KING.
In Utah, a lightning-sparked fire consumed about 34 square miles, threatened a herd of wild horses and shut down the historic Pony Express Road in the state's western desert.
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Meanwhile, crews in Northern California made progress against an aggressive wildfire in Lake County that grew to more than 9 square miles and destroyed three buildings. Officials lifted evacuation orders for the residents of nearly 500 homes late Monday, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Berlant told NBC station KCRA in Sacramento on Tuesday that the fire was still advancing, though in a remote area.
"This fire will likely make a number of runs on us today," Berlant told KCRA.
A separate wildfire to the north was threatening about 600 homes, prompting some evacuation orders in the Seneca and Rush Creek communities in Plumas National Forest.
The so-called Wye and Walker fires have charred 7,000 acres and are 30 percent contained, Berlant told KCRA. About 1,100 firefighters were on scene of those fires.
Fires across California have affected some national parks, including Lassen Volcanic National Park and Joshua Tree National Park.
In Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is inortheastern California, a fire that burned 33 square miles of pine forests and thick brush forced the closure of a highway and several trails.
At Joshua Tree, park officials said a fire burned up to 300 acres of rocky, tree-covered hillsides, closing the scenic Keys View Road.
Several other fires in hot and dry Southern California were sparked by lightning, including three burning out of control northeast of Julian. None were threatening any structures.
See our full drought coverage here. And on Wednesday, Aug. 15, watch NBC News, CNBC, MSNBC, The Weather Channel and Telemundo for daylong, network-wide coverage of the drought.
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