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- NATION, Page 27American NotesTHE WESTGone to Blazes
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- Scorching temperatures, dry lightning storms and little
- rain have incinerated much of the West again this year. "At one
- point we had 43 major fires going simultaneously," said Arnold
- Hartigan of Idaho's Boise Interagency Fire Center, the nation's
- wildfire command post. Idaho has had 18 major fires burning
- across 187,000 acres, while Oregon had nine on 54,000 acres.
- California had two major fires that burned 23,000 acres, and
- Utah had one big blaze on 1,700 acres.
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- The Lowman fire, 75 miles northeast of Boise, destroyed 25
- houses and businesses, including a resort lodge. Idaho Governor
- Cecil Andrus declared an extreme emergency to call in more than
- 300 National Guardsmen to help 9,000 fire fighters battling to
- control the burning land. Although the fires are not quite as
- bad as last year's, 462 million board feet of timber have been
- destroyed in the Boise National Forest alone.
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