4 FIREFIGHTERS DIE IN WA

[Guest guest]

A reminder of how deadly forrest fires can be.

WINTHROP, Okanogan County - Wind-whipped flames from a 4,000-acre wildfire

trapped and killed four firefighters late last night, and injured several

firefighters and civilians. After firefighters had partly contained the

summer's first blaze 22 miles south of here, another fire exploded, catching

them off guard. " They thought they had it under control, " said U.S. Forest

Service spokeswoman Debbie . " Due to the heavy fuels, the rugged terrain

and high winds, the fire just blew up. " The circumstances surrounding the

deaths were unclear last night. Officials were not expected to release the

names or hometowns of the dead until this morning. When the fire turned

against firefighters, blowing back over them, several were forced to deploy

their heat-deflecting foil tent shelters. Four were injured, and four others

were missing, prompting fire officials to initiate a search as darkness set

in. They confirmed that the missing four were dead about 11:20 p.m. An

unknown number of campers also were injured. One severely burned firefighter

was flown to Seattle and was in serious condition at Harborview Medical

Center last night, a nursing supervisor said. Others were treated at

Winthrop-area clinics for burns or smoke inhalation. One of the injured, Tom

of Leavenworth, Chelan County, suffered first- and second-degree

burns, said his mother, Gayle Ray of Chattaroy, Spokane County. " I'm not sure

where he was, but at one point he was able to run down a hill and jump in a

river, " she said, adding that called her from the ambulance. A new

team is being brought in to fight what is being called the 30-Mile fire in

the s Creek area of the Okanogan National Forest. It grew from less

than 10 acres early yesterday to 4,000 in just a few hours. " No form of

control right now is effective, " said Art Tasker, a fire-information officer

in Winthrop who called the 30-Mile fire " extremely volatile. " Temperatures

near 100 degrees and increasing winds yesterday afternoon meant fire crews

could not shift their attention from the Libby South fire, the 1,240-acre

blaze south of Libby Creek that began Monday. Officials don't know the cause

of either fire, and no homes were threatened in the fire north of Winthrop.

The Libby fire did not spread much yesterday, as crews used bulldozers and

hand tools to scratch a dirt boundary around about 45 percent of its

perimeter. Two helicopters dangling 250-gallon buckets dumped water on one

flank of the fire off Highway 153 near Carlton, while three air tankers

dropped water or retardant on a ridge above Libby Creek. Almost 600 people

worked to protect about 50 threatened homes, dug firebreaks or managed the

camp set up around the headquarters of the local high school. Low humidity

was expected to keep the Libby fire burning strong well into last night.

Temperatures today are expected in the 90s with a possibility of

thunderstorms. Officials did not expect to have the fire contained until

Friday night. The total cost of that fire so far is estimated at $900,000.

Wildfires are expected in summer, especially in Eastern Washington. But

winter's light snowfall has made the scorching heat and drying winds of the

season even more frightening to firefighters and homeowners. Large downed

trees known as " 1,000-hour fuels " now have 10 to 12 percent moisture content.

They usually have a few percentage points more, said Agee, a University

of Washington professor of forest ecology and expert in forest-fire ecology.

" They're probably kind of mid-August conditions right now, " he said of

Eastern Washington. As a result, " we are getting fires that are jumping out a

little bit larger than they usually do this time of year. " The Libby Creek

area is among 600,000 acres in the Okanogan and Wenatchee national forests in

need of brush-clearing, said Hart, a spokesman for the forests.