Wildfires

Wildfires - Wyoming, Idaho - USA

Hundreds of Wyoming residents were forced to flee a wind-driven wildfire that destroyed at least 10 homes even as a separate blaze in neighbouring Idaho burned several cabins to the ground and prompted dozens to evacuate, fire managers said Monday.

The fire that broke out Saturday evening in a brush pile at a landfill north of Wyoming’s second-largest city of Casper has charred 10,000 acres of grasslands and trees and led to the evacuation of more than 300 residents, said Bob Fawcett, fire marshal with the Natrona County Fire Protection District.

At least 10 houses and an unknown number of outbuildings have been lost to a blaze fed by winds that gusted up to 60 miles an hour over the weekend amid bone-dry conditions, he said.

That fire and a blaze in southwest Idaho that has destroyed three cabins and forced about 80 people from their homes since igniting Saturday near the small mountain town of Idaho City have come at a time the fire season in the northern Rockies is usually drawing to a close, officials said.