Battle continues against Western fires as winds shift

August 30, 1999
Web posted at: 12:46 a.m. EDT (0446 GMT)

In this story: Firefighter dies in national forest Highway into Yosemite closed 'A great assignment' RELATED STORIES, SITES

SANTA BARBARA, California (CNN) -- Firefighters were to fight a 180-acre blaze north of Santa Barbara again on Monday, following the death of a firefighter in the Los Padres National Forest over the weekend.

Despite strong, shifting winds on Sunday, fire officials across the West expressed cautious hope of controlling fires that have been raging for the last week in several states.

More than 200,000 acres have burned. Nine large fires in California, Nevada, Oregon and Texas were reported close to containment late Sunday, but 460 new small wildfires broke out across the country over the weekend, the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho reported.

Three hundred of the fires were reported in the southern region, from east Texas to Florida. The rest were scattered throughout the West.

Throughout California, more than 7,000 firefighters were battling 13 fires.

Rescuers found Stephen Joseph Masto, 28, in steep terrain of the Los Padres National Forest on Saturday after he didn't return to camp. Officials said it wasn't clear how he died and there was no evidence of burns.

"This may have been his first wildfire," said Michael Kotowski, a battalion chief with the Santa Barbara, California, city fire department where Masto was stationed. He said Masto had volunteered to help fight the 180-acre blaze.

Blazes in Butte County, in northern California have charred 32,914 acres. Two major fires were surrounded on Sunday, and firefighters were gaining the upper hand on three others.

"The best news is that we're very slowly getting containment around most of the fires," said Alleah Haley, a fire information officer for the California Department of Forestry in Butte County.

"The bad news is that we're expecting 20-30 mph winds. We're holding all our resources, hoping for the best and being prepared for the worst," Haley said.

In the mountains northeast of Los Angeles, high, erratic winds caused the evacuation of two sparsely populated desert communities north of a 16,640-acre fire burning near the resort town of Lake Arrowhead, officials said.

A fire in the Stanislaus National Forest that forced the closure of Highway 120 into Yosemite National Park was contained after burning 4,028 acres, but officials kept about 1,000 firefighters on the scene for fear of flareups. The highway was reopened Sunday.

Several small fires in Southern California closed some mountain highways but caused little damage and no injuries, officials said.

In Nevada, crews had contained the largest fire, 45,000 acres north of Reno, but a blaze 80 miles southwest of Ely had burned 10,000 acres and was still raging. And in Washington State, smaller fires near the Columbia River and Major Creek were under control Sunday afternoon.

Light rain in Oregon lessened the threat of several small lightning-sparked fires. A 1,500-acre grass fire on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in north-central Oregon was contained, officials said.

Even with the dangers they face, firefighters from Masto's Santa Barbara department line up to help fight the big wildfires, Kotowski said.

"Everyone loves to go. It's a great assignment, very exciting," he said. "In fact, it's such a popular assignment that we have a formal rotation. Steve was next up. You can decline to go, but he certainly didn't. He wanted to go."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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