Wildfires

Wildfires USA

Firefighting planes dropped retardant and ground crews trailed water hoses Monday to keep a fast-moving and unpredictable wildfire from scorching homes in a remote Idaho hamlet, where residents have been evacuated ahead of a big blaze for a second straight year.

Thunder and lightning storms have sparked dozens of wildfires across the West in recent days, sending fire crews scrambling, threatening communities and impairing air quality in some areas.

Near the central Idaho community of Pine, the lightning-sparked Elk Complex Fire had burned 141 square miles of sage brush, grass and pine trees in rugged, mountainous terrain.

A few miles to the south, another big fire, the Pony Complex, had burned nearly 225 square miles of ground amid escalating winds and temperatures. Though it's now about a third contained, downed power lines complicated efforts by firefighters to corral the flames.

Pine and neighbouring Featherville were under mandatory evacuation orders Monday, a day after Elmore County sheriff's deputies went from house to house, knocking on doors to alert residents to clear out of the area.

A wildfire on the Utah-Idaho border grew to more than 25 square miles Sunday evening.

Six wildfires remain active in the Wyoming, but they have been showing little growth in recent days.