Sunday, August 30, 2009

Big wildfires hit western US states

Disaster News Network: A massive wildfire exploded in three different directions in the mountains north of Los Angeles Saturday night destroying more homes and threatening as many as 12,000 homes. Meanwhile in Utah, emergency officials were urging residents to leave in the face of another rapidly spreading wildfire.

Emergency officials said they expect the fire, now stretching 19-miles from east to west, will continue to spread. They are predicting Sunday will produce "extreme fire conditions." More than 2,000 fire fighters are working to control the San Gabriel Valley fire that has already consumed more than 35,000 acres.

On Saturday the Station Fire, as it has been named, was moving between Acton near the Antelope Valley to Altadena in the San Gabriel Valley at a rate of approximately 2.5 miles per hour. Some the flames were shooting up as high as 80-feet.

…In New Harmony, Utah, emergency officials were going door-to-door Sunday morning to encourage residents to evacuate in the face of a growing wildfire that has already burned three homes and is threatening dozens more. The Mill Flat Fire has already consumed more than 10,000 acres and is expected to continue to spread with forecasts of wind gusts of 25 mph or more. About 150 residents are already in area shelters….

Shot of a 2006 fire in Oregon by Wing-Chi Poon, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License

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