Park icons threatened by wind-driven wildfires

UNITED STATES: Winds wreaked havoc on wildfires that were threatening two crown jewels of the National Park Service yesterday, pushing the flames toward manmade and natural icons in and around Glacier and Yosemite national parks.

The wind-driven fires, combined with high temperatures and dry conditions, have disrupted holiday travel and hampered firefighters across the West during a Labor Day weekend that capped a devastating summer in which an area larger than Rhode Island has burned.

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, where health officials issued an air quality advisory alert.

A fire in Montana’s Glacier National Park emptied the park’s busiest tourist spot as wind gusts drove the blaze toward the doorstep of a century old lodge. The 36-square-kilometre fire that consumed a historic Glacier backcountry chalet last week was about 2km away from Lake McDonald Lodge, a 103-year-old Swiss chalet-style hotel.

Outside California’s Yosemite National Park, a wind-fuelled fire drove deeper into a grove of 2700-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.’'

There are about 100 giant sequoias in the grove, including the roughly 24-storey-high Bull Buck sequoia, one of the world’s largest. - Reuters