In Washington, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office warned Lind residents Thursday afternoon to flee because of the raging flames. “At this time all residents of the City of Lind must evacuate immediately,” the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post. Later Thursday, Sheriff Dale Wagner said six homes were burned as well as eight other structures. With the help of state and local resources, Wagner said the fire had begun to subside and by 8 p.m. all evacuation orders had been lifted. “They will be fighting it all night to make sure it doesn’t flare up again or get worse,” he said, adding that firefighters were dealing with high heat and windy conditions. He said one firefighter suffered smoke inhalation and was taken to Spokane for treatment. Lind is a community of about 500 people about 75 miles (121 kilometers) southwest of Spokane. The state fire marshal’s office said the fire burned about 3.9 square miles (10.1 square kilometers). Homes, infrastructure and crops were threatened. The causes of the fire are being investigated. Meanwhile, in California, forecasters warned on Thursday that sharp temperature and falling humidity levels could create conditions for further wildfire growth. California and much of the rest of the West is in drought and the risk of wildfires is high, with the worst fire season on record yet to come. Fires are burning all over the area. After five days without containment, the McKinney Fire in California’s Siskiyou County near the Oregon border was 10 percent contained Thursday. Bulldozers and hand crews made progress to dig out fires around most of the rest of the fire, fire officials said. In the southeast corner of the fire, evacuation orders for parts of Yreka, home to about 7,800 people, were downgraded to warnings, allowing residents to return to their homes but with a caution that the situation remained dangerous. About 1,300 people remained under evacuation orders, officials said at a community meeting Wednesday night. The fire didn’t make much progress midweek, after several days of short but heavy rain from storms that provided cloudy, wet conditions. But as clouds clear and moisture levels drop in the coming days, the fire could roar again, authorities warned. “This is a sleeping giant right now,” said Daryl Laws, a unified incident commander at the fire. Temperatures over the weekend could reach triple digits as the region dries out again, said meteorologist Brian Nieuwenhuis of the National Weather Service’s Medford, Ore., office. The fire broke out on July 29 and has charred nearly 92 square miles (238 square kilometers) of forestland, which has been left dry by the drought. More than 100 houses and other buildings have been burned and four bodies have been found, including two in a burned-out car on a street. The fire was initially fueled by strong winds ahead of a storm cell. More storms earlier this week proved to be a mixed blessing. A torrential rain on Tuesday dropped as much as 3 inches (7.6 cm) on some eastern parts of the fire, but most of the fire area had almost nothing, said Dennis Burns, fire behavior analyst. The latest storm also raised concerns about possible river flooding and mudslides. A private contractor in a truck helping the firefighting effort was injured when a bridge gave way and swept the vehicle, Kreider said. The contractor’s injuries were not life-threatening. Progress against the flames came too late for many people in the quaint Klamath River village, home to about 200 people before the fire burned many of the homes, along with the post office, community center and other buildings. Scientists say the climate emergency has made the West hotter and drier over the past three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. California has seen the largest, most destructive and deadliest wildfires in the past five years. In northwestern Montana, a wildfire that destroyed at least four homes and forced the evacuation of about 150 homes west of Flathead Lake continued to be pushed north by winds Wednesday, fire officials said. The Moose Fire in Idaho has burned more than 85 square miles (220 square kilometers) in the Salmon-Challis National Forest while threatening homes, mining operations and fisheries near the town of Salmon. And a wildfire in northwest Nebraska prompted evacuations and damaged or destroyed several homes near the small town of Gering.
