Wind-whipped wildfires roared through the state of Washington on Tuesday, virtually wiping out an entire small town and consuming more than 330,000 acres in 24 hours, authorities say.
National Guard troops were assisting firefighters, Franz said. Hot weather,"hurricane-force winds" and dry brush worked against them, she said.The two largest blazes are the 174,000-acre Pearl Hill Fire, in Douglas County, and the 163,000-acre Cold Springs Fire near Omak, said state Department of Natural Resources spokesperson Thomas Kyle-Milward.
There was no level of containment for either fire, he said, but nightfall brought some hope in the battle against the Cold Springs Fire."Air efforts have stopped the fire from spreading much further," Kyle-Milward said. Firefighters had no containment against the Babbs-Malden Fire, in and around the town of Malden, which had charred 8,943 acres by evening, he said.
The blaze destroyed 80 percent of Malden, wiping out its post office, its fire department, City Hall and the adjoining library, sheriff's officials said. Half the buildings of neighboring Pine City were also destroyed by the Malden Fire, a state official said."The scale of this disaster really can't be expressed in words," Whitman County Sheriff Brett Myers said in a statement.
The Colfax Fire, which burned 5 acres, was 100 percent contained by late Tuesday morning, regional fire spokeswoman Sydney McBride said.
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