■ Montana needed out-ofstate fire crews, and an Oregon wildfire was less than halfway contained.

Oregon blaze less than halfway contained

BLY, Ore. — Out-of-state crews headed to Montana on Saturday to battle a blaze that injured five firefighters as the West struggled with a series of wildfires.

Progress was being made on the nation’s largest blaze, the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, but less than half of it had been contained, fire officials said.

“This fire is resistant to stopping at dozer lines,” Jim Hanson, fire behavior analyst, said Saturday in a news release from the Oregon Department of Forestry. “With the critically dry weather and fuels we are experiencing, firefighters are having to constantly re-evaluate their control lines and look for contingency options.”

In California, the Tamarack Fire south of Lake Tahoe continued to burn through timber and chaparral and threatened communities on both sides of the California-Nevada state line. The fire, sparked by lightning July 4 in Alpine County, has destroyed at least 10 buildings.

In Butte County, California, the Dixie Fire continued to burn in rugged and remote terrain, hampering firefighters’ efforts to contain the blaze as it grows eastward, becoming the state’s largest wildfire this year.

Heavy smoke from both huge fires lowered visibility and may at times ground aircraft providing support for fire crews on the ground. The air quality south of Lake Tahoe and across the state line into Nevada deteriorated to very unhealthy levels.

In Montana, five firefighters remained hospitalized a day after a thunderstorm and swirling winds blew a lightning-caused wildfire back on them, federal officials said.

The five had joined other crews working on the 1,300-acre Devil’s Creek fire burning in rough, steep terrain near the rural town of Jordan.

Noah Berger The Associated Press Firefighters light a backfire Friday to stop the Dixie Fire from spreading near Prattville in Plumas County, Calif.