 Rampant wildfires force firefighters to pick their battles
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-02 07:41
The unprecedented number and size of wildfires burning in California this year has forced firefighters to strategically choose which ones to tackle. Their plan is this: Crews are dispatched to protect communities in the path of flames, while blazes are allowed to chew through hectares of forest land. Officials say the tactic is necessary in a fire season that already has seen hot weather, rough terrain and lightning storms complicate efforts to bring blazes under control. "It's like eating an elephant - you've got to eat it one bite at a time," said Jason Kirchner, a spokesman for the US Forest Service. "We have to take a step back, figure out where the best place is to make a stand and sometimes wait for the fire to come to us in those situations." Long-running wildfires are not unusual in California. It was four months before firefighters controlled a blaze that blackened more than 971 sq km of Santa Barbara County backcountry last year. What is extraordinary this year is the number of fires burning at the same time, Kirchner said. The weekend of June 21 saw some 1,200 fires burning - a figure Forest Service officials said appeared to be an all-time record in California. The Forest Service put the figure at about 600 on Monday. It attributed the gains to its tactic of attacking small fires first, and to significant assistance from other states and from Canada. State officials, however, counted more than 1,000 ongoing blazes. The source of the discrepancy apparently was a different counting method. Also unusual, Kirchner said, was that there have been no significant injuries to civilians or firefighters even though some 1,476 sq km have burned in California this season. There were a few minor injuries as harsh terrain hampered firefighters' efforts to battle a blaze in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Agencies (China Daily 07/02/2008 page11) |
