Wildfires Scorch West Amidst Heat Wave

Hundreds Evacuated As Wildfires Flare Across Nevada, California And Washington; 1 Dead In S.D. Blaze

(CBS/AP)  A blaze in southwestern South Dakota killed one person and destroyed 20 homes Sunday, and hundreds of people have evacuated homes in the paths of fires in Nevada and Washington state.

Residents of about 50 homes had fled the wildfire burning near Hot Springs that also had injured two firefighters, state and federal officials said. Roughly 8 square miles had burned since the fire started Saturday.

The 8,000-acre wildfire in northern Nevada was threatening up to eight blocks of homes in the town of Winnemucca, about 170 miles east of Reno.

"It's right up to the south edge of town," said U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman Jamie Thompson. "The fire definitely poses a danger to parts of the town."

The Utah Highway Patrol on Sunday reopened a 100-mile stretch of Interstate 15 and 25 miles of I-70 that were closed when a 250-square-mile fire jumped the highways and filled the air with dense smoke.

Police are warning people who are going to be on that stretch of Inerstate 15 to be extremely careful because a cold front is expected to shift winds and possibly send the fire right back over the freeway, reports Jennifer Stagg of CBS affiliate KUTV.

Poor visibility was blamed for several accidents in Utah, including a motorcycle crash that killed two people.

Other Western fires blackened the landscape in California, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho and Oregon.

The largest Nevada fire had blackened 36 square miles, or 23,000 acres, along the Idaho state line, said Mike Brown, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. It was 10 percent contained Saturday, officials said.

Another fire blackened 11 square miles, or 7,000 acres, about five miles southwest of Carlin. It destroyed two mobile homes and several smaller structures, and closed a section of Interstate 80 for six hours during the night, fire information officer Tracie Winfrey said.

The South Dakota wildfire grew overnight due to extreme fire behavior and erratic wind.

South Dakota's firefighting resources were reduced Saturday when a single-engine air tanker crashed while fighting a fire on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The pilot walked away from the wreck, according to the Northern Great Plains Joint Information Center.

High wind in central Washington state during the night spread a brush fire that threatened homes outside Wenatchee. By Sunday morning, 250 to 270 homes had been evacuated and more were under alert. At least three outbuildings were destroyed.

Fire officials estimated the blaze had covered 800 and 1,000 acres, said Jeri Freimuth, a fire information officer.

The fire in central Utah had swept across parts of two counties, charring an estimated 160,000 acres, or 250 square miles, fire information officer LaCee Bartholomew said.

"The fire laid down a little overnight, but it's still active," she said Sunday. "We don't have an accurate updated acreage, but it did grow."

In California, more than 400 firefighters battled a blaze that had covered 17,000 acres of the 2 million-acre Inyo National Forest east of Yosemite National Park, forest spokeswoman Nancy Upham said Saturday. Firefighters were searching for and evacuating hikers on and near a popular trail to Mount Whitney, tallest peak in the lower 48 states.

At least 200 people were evacuated from the small town of Independence, Calif., and a section of highway that runs along the eastern spine of the Sierra Nevada mountain range was closed, officials said.

About two dozen people had fled two tiny northern Arizona communities Sunday as a blaze blackened 900 acres near Mormon Lake, southeast of Flagstaff. The communities, Long Park and Bear Park, have a combined 18 homes and summer cabins, said Coconino County Sheriff's Office spokesman Gerry Blair.

Elsewhere on Sunday, a grass and forest fire near Michigan's Saugatuck Dunes State Park, along Lake Michigan, destroyed at least three homes and forced evacuation of about a dozen other homes for part of the morning, authorities said.

[bennyblack1]

After all, how do you fight God?

[bennyblack1]

King David, as the Old Testament records, only thought of some unthinkable sin as he told his scribes to take a census of Israel. It is not recorded what this evil thought was, but God knew his heart. God punished the people of Israel for his evil thought. The census was a precursor for what David was going to do next. In order to wake David up and prevent that, God struck the land with storms, plaques, disease, and death until David changed his mind. Don't you think that God just MIGHT be punishing the people of the land for what Bush is THINKING that no one else knows? A probing question to ask would be, "What are you planning?" Something horrible has happened to President Bush, and because of the evil he's doing to this country, God is attempting to wake him up... with FIRE across the land in the sweltering heat, with DISEASE brought on by illegal aliens and immoral behavior, with FLOODS in the heart land where much of our food is planted and harvested, food POISONED by China, toys made with parts on them that small children can CHOKE on by China, and DEATH. There are TERRORIST in the U.S. waiting for the opportunity to gather and attack. This confusing weather in the United States is not a punishment for the immorality of the people. It's all over the country. It is God making war with Bush and his policies. That should be enough to make the people do something about it. We don't need God raining down his wrath on us for the bad policies of President Bush.

[rohink-2009]

The human race is the worse reason for fighting it. I prefer to use up everything now so your off-spring dies. The greatest hope for this planet is that the human race is obliterated. The greatest threat is that even one human can survive.

Posted by pansycritter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please do your part and make sure you don't reproduce. Better yet, why don't you exit now!

[tim8559]

That's why I stay where the whole weather deal is not a issue. visit this site for cool free coupon deals, WWW.FELONYMILLS.COM WWW.FELONYMILLS.COM

[feelfree1]

Dear CBS web editors:

Why are pages of comments erased, and further comments disallowed, for articles where the Bush apologists are having their rhetorical arses handed to them, such as appeared to be the case for the 'Violent Weekend In Iraq Kills Over 220' article?

Is your analysis too flimsy to withstand scrutiny?

Thank you in advance.

[tnt1954]

planet earth 2101 a.d.---gas 200 dollars a
gallon. average net income per year over
the whole planet, 25 cents. but it is now
known as the united states of earth. a space
war with neighboring planets continues.
taxes are generally 100% of gross income
to help pay for the space wars. if people
did not cheat on their taxes they'd starve.
president jenna bush the third says we need
to tighten the belt, as she sits down to
pheasant under glass every night. but she
does say grace before she eats. her vice
president, chelsea clinton the third enjoys
ice cream with cherries jubilee every day.
and says moo cow moo, before spooning it down.
obama the fourth, a 12 year old secretary
of defense appointed by his ancestors runs
the space war efficiently, with the aid
of his computer. he loves bananna splits. his
favorite saying while taking heat, is, that's
cool man, really cool.

[feelfree1]

Breaking:

Asked what should be done about the harsh weather conditions, a spokesman for Resident Tush has indicated that the Resident has plans to Bomb Iran, and to declare Martial Law in the U.S., in a pre-emptive strategy, intended to preserve our freedoms, and our democracy.

Tush spokesman 'tweb', declined to elaborate on how this move might resolve the current crisis.

[ubrew12]

george2221 said: "It looks worse this year than last year from the news. Global warming brings global and local climate changes."

Yeah. Its impossible to say from one heat wave, but the increasing Western drought seems to speak of the dreaded Warming. Its possible to put some of it down to El Nino, but its als possible that El Nino itself is related to Global Warming. It's always been dry in the far west, of course, but the extension of drought like conditions northward and eastward is definitely alarming.

[micma-2009]

Welcome to the Neocon vision of the future of the planet. Drought, fire, rising sea levels, flash floods, monster storms, record setting hurricanes... all from the very same people who brought you Iraq. But don't worry, the oil companies will continue to make record profits right up to the bitter end.

[feelfree1]

Breaking: Another Setback in the 'War on Weather'

According to experts at the SITE Wether Institute, agreeing to comment on the condition that their identities remain secret, it is %u2018believed%u2019 that frigid temperatures can be expected to worsen in coming days, throughout the Western United States.

The Public Relations Spokesperson of IntelWetherCenter, who asked not to be identified, purported that their sources have intercepted a video, posted on a popular weather-terror website, which has been %u2018linked%u2019 to known weather extremists.

In the video, well known weather-extremist Freeze Miser (currently the #3 operative of the arch-weather-terror-group, %u2018al-Eqstremewethera%u2019) has claimed responsibility for the cold snap and flooding throughout the West, and has called on sleeper cells throughout Finland and Guam to expand and increase their attacks, at one point shouting %u201Csuck my Popsicle, you stupid Americanz!%u201D over and over, in a near-gibberish fashion.

Top U.S. counter-weather operative, Heat Miser has teamed up with Wal-Mart, Monsanto, and Exxon-Mobile, and has promised a green Christmas to the western U.S., adding, %u201CIf conventional heating methods don%u2019t work, we%u2019ll just nuke the place- THAT ought%u2019ta heat things up! AH-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa%u2026!%u201D

Media experts have acknowledged that there is no way to confirm the authenticity of the video.

[pansycritter]

Posted by hawksprings at 03:46 PM : Jul 08, 2007

Hey Hawk, Get informed. Go back into the bathroom and read some factual news magazines. The rise in ocean temperatures cause what?

Personally I am for global warming. The human race is the worse reason for fighting it. I prefer to use up everything now so your off-spring dies. The greatest hope for this planet is that the human race is obliterated. The greatest threat is that even one human can survive.

[hawksprings]

Wait a second, Global Warming Sheep.
Whenever the temps are below normal, like last February and April, we were told by posters on this site that you can't use those "isolated occurances" to say human-caused global warming is bogus.

Now with warm weather and fires during fire season, there's cries of "See, it's OUR FAULT it's hot in July!!"

You can't have it both ways.

The fact is that it's July and it's fire season.
There are thousands of wildfires EVERY SUMMER.
The difference now is that because there is a Mainstream Media Template that we're all going to die from Global Warming, now we're going to hear about EVERY fire that happens in the entire country EVERY DAY. It's going to be a full-court mainstream media press to make sure every fire and every hot day in Las Vegas is reported non-stop.

About 20 years ago the media did the same thing with gun deaths. They started reporting EVERY death EVERY night on the news. Made it sound like an epidemic of gun violence. Only later did we learn that in that particular year, gun deaths were DOWN from average. But the media made it SEEM like it was getting much worse.

By the way, where are all the hurricanes??

The climate had heated up before (to MUCH warmer temps) and it's heating up now.
We didn't cause it and we can't stop it.

[blueseahorse]

China has has record three digit temperatures, plus massive sandstorms, as more land is turning into desert., Greece has had record 3 digit temperatures., the Prime Minister of Australia has even asked citizens to pray for rain because of a long-lasting drought. No viable earth, no humans., These are all warning signs that we are destroying ourselves by a thousand cuts.

[sandy19731]

Remember all those sarcastic comments in February about the cold weather and global warming.

Well, this is not an example of it either, local weather is not climate.

But, global warming is real. Regardless of today's or last February's daily weather.