Wildfires rage in US West
Wind-whipped flames bear down on historic national parks
Air quality plummets as smoke and ash from fires blanket cities.
MONTANA: Wind-driven flames, hot temperatures and dry conditions are hampering firefighters across the West even after Labor Day, the unofficial end to a summer of devastating wildfires.
The dozens of fires burning across the West and Canada have blanketed the air with choking smoke from Oregon, where ash fell on the town of Cascade Locks, to Colorado, prompting health officials to issue an air quality advisory alert.
A 36 sq km fire in Montana’s Glacier National Park emptied the park’s busiest tourist spot as wind gusts drove the blaze towards the doorstep of a century-old lodge.
The Lake McDonald Lodge, a 103-year-old Swiss chalet-style hotel, sits on a lake as the Going-to-the-Sun-Road begins its vertigo-inducing climb up the Continental Divide which has made it an endearing park symbol for many visitors.
On Monday, fire crews got bad news: The wind had shifted and gusts were driving the fire down the mountainside toward the lake’s shores.
Losing Lake McDonald Lodge on top of the destruction of Sperry Chalet last week would be “unimaginably devastating”, said Mark Hufstetler, a historian who worked at the lodge for several years in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
“These are some of the most remarkable buildings anywhere in the United States and they are an integral part of the Glacier experience and the Glacier tradition.”
Fire crews understood the significance of the lodge and were ready to protect it, said fire information officer Diane Sine.
“It’s important to all of us and a very high priority to do whatever we can to preserve that,” she said.
Outside California’s Yosemite National Park, a wind-fuelled fire made its way deeper into a grove of 2,700-year-old giant sequoia trees. Officials said the fire had gone through about half the grove, and had not killed any trees.
Giant sequoias are resilient and can withstand low intensity fires.
The blaze burned low-level brush and left scorch marks on some big trees that survived, said Cheryl Chipman, a fire information officer.
“They have thick bark and made it through pretty well,” she said.
There are about 100 giant sequoias in the grove, including the roughly 24 storey-high Bull Buck sequoia, one of the world’s largest.
Fire crews also wrapped 19th-century cabins in shiny, fire-resistant material to protect them from the flames.
The fire threatening the grove was one of several in the area, one of which closed some trails in Yosemite. A road leading to the park’s southern entrance was also closed.
Elsewhere in Northern California, a fire destroyed 72 homes and forced the evacuation of about 2,000 people from their houses.
In Los Angeles, a fire that destroyed four homes and threatened hillside neighbourhoods was no longer actively burning, but firefighters remained at the scene in case winds reignited the blaze.