SIERRA NEVADA | WILDFIRES
A parched West bears the scars of wildfires; U.S. 395 reopened
Crews make progress in Inyo County. Elsewhere, a copter crashes, homes are evacuated — and weather could worsen.
Crews stayed on the offensive against major blazes around California and other Western states Sunday, a day marked by an epic fire in Utah and evacuations of hundreds of homes in Washington, as well as a helicopter crash that hurt two firefighters in Santa Barbara County.
But firefighters' efforts also yielded progress in California that permitted the return home of 75 to 100 evacuated Inyo County residents, as well as travelers who had been stranded earlier in the weekend by fires that arced across U.S. Highway 395, a key thoroughfare to resort spots in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.
The dozens of fires across the West included Utah's largest-ever wildfire, at 283,000 acres, as well as a brush fire near Wenatchee, Wash., that led to the evacuation of 250 to 270 homes.
Portions of Interstates 15 and 70 in Utah, which were periodically closed to traffic over the weekend as heavy smoke impaired visibility, were reopened late Sunday but then shut again today, according to Associated Press. The affected stretches -- I-15 from State Route 20 to Cove Fort and I-70 from the I-15 junction to Highway 89 -- were scheduled to remain closed until at least 1:30 p.m today.
Other Western blazes — vindicating widespread predictions that the summer heat and parched landscapes would yield a ferocious fire season through the region — scorched parts of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Oregon.
In Nevada, about 1,500 evacuees from Winnemucca were allowed home hours after a wildfire shut down Interstate 80, destroyed an electrical substation, delayed trains and killed livestock.
A tragic lightning-sparked blaze also struck the Great Plains. Flames raced out of a canyon in South Dakota's Black Hills, leading to the death of a homeowner who was overcome while trying retrieve personal belongings, and also destroying 27 homes and charring nine square miles.
The deaths of two Californians were also linked to the fires. Roy Rex Redmon, 68, and his wife, Mary Ann, 65, of Rowland Heights perished Saturday after smoke from one of the Utah fires obscured visibility on Interstate 15, causing a chain-reaction collision, authorities said.
In California, firefighters gained ground on the two major lightning-sparked blazes — together known as the Inyo Complex fire — in the Inyo National Forest.
By Sunday evening, the fires overall were about 15% contained and together had burned about 34,000 acres, authorities said.
Fire officials confirmed the loss of one home and several other structures, and said they expect to announce a higher tally today.
The California Highway Patrol said traffic was moving smoothly Sunday on Highway 395 a day after officials closed as much as 115 miles of the artery tracing the eastern spine of the Sierra.
For weekend travelers whose trips were dependent on Highway 395, Sunday was a day of comparing notes on how close they came to beating Saturday's roadway shutdown that extended at times from Bishop on the north to Pearsonville on the south.
On their way to Bishop from their home in Upland, Bob and Pat Mayhall were stuck for two hours in a long line of cars and trucks at a roadblock outside Independence, a community at the heart of the fires about 185 miles north of Los Angeles that was partly evacuated Saturday. "If we hadn't stopped for lunch, we would have made it through," Bob Mayhall lamented.
The couple pulled over and waited two hours, as others sat along the highway in lawn chairs. The Mayhalls got the last space at an RV park in Lone Pine, where they spent the night. "We were lucky," Pat Mayhall said. "We are self-contained."
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