Idaho wildfire forces hundreds to evacuate

An Idaho wildfire, which has already burned through more than 92,000 acres, is being pushed by strong wind gusts and fed by dry timber and brush as it moves northward, forcing more evacuations near the central Idaho resort town of Ketchum and bringing the number of residences evacuated by the blaze to more than 2,300. 

Ketchum, with a population of 2,700, and Sun Valley, with 1,400 people, were under "pre-evacuation orders," with authorities telling residents to be ready to leave if necessary. Many in those towns heeded the advice as the exodus heading south on Highway 75 continued to slow traffic through the valley.

Ketchum's retail and dining districts, normally buzzing this time of year with tourists and summer residents, looked like a ghost town. 

Lightning ignited the blaze -- which firefighters said is only 6 percent contained -- on Aug. 7. Fire officials estimated it grew to 144 square miles (92,160 acres) by Friday night, but they expected to have a more accurate sense of the fire's size after a plane with infrared cameras flew over it on Saturday night.

Despite adverse conditions and the unusual intesity and volatility of the fire, some progress was made on the blaze -- dubbed the Beaver Creek Fire -- at its south end, where crews conducted mop-up along the borders of blackened foothills west of the city of Hailey, which has a population of 7,920 and sits 14 miles south of Ketchum.

The Beaver Creek Fire is the nation's top-priority wildfire, in part because it's burning so close to homes and subdivisions. Early Saturday, the firefight was hampered by thick smoke that engulfed Hailey.

Smoke stretching across the tight Big Wood River Valley also grounded the air attack on the blaze, putting more pressure on fire crews building fire lines on the ground. But by midday Saturday, the smoke cleared enough to scramble helicopters that targeted fires burning in the mountains and foothills that shoulder Hailey and north to Ketchum.

Fire managers also turned to a huge DC-10 tanker to resume retardant drops all across a fire that is burning hotter and faster than the Castle Rock Fire that threatened these towns in 2007.

"This fire is consuming everything," fire spokeswoman Madonna Lengerich said. "The fire is so hot, it's just cremating even the biggest trees."

More than 700 firefighters have been deployed to the mountains west of the affluent region, where celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis own pricey getaways. 

Five more hotshot crews, which are 20-person, specially trained firefighter units, arrived Saturday, and more are expected to arrive to continue focusing on protecting homes in the sparsely populated county.

Fire officials are hoping the weather cooperates Sunday, when temperatures are expected to cool.

Elsewhere, in northern Utah, about 10 homes were destroyed when a wildfire raced through the community of Willow Springs late Friday. As of midday Saturday, the Patch Springs Fire had burned more than 50 square miles (32,000 acres). It was 20 percent contained.

The Idaho fires come a week after a blaze burned some 20,000 acres in Southern California's Riverside County. In a recent panel, NASA scientists discussed what they believe to be a link between climate change and the increasing number of wildfires plaguing the U.S.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press