Battle of the Blazes

The Northwest is on fire. Since the beginning of August, 600,000 acres in six states have been ignited by lightning storms and kept ablaze by erratic summer winds. The raging flames have consumed prime lumber land in Oregon and Idaho, as well as parts of Washington, Montana, Utah and Nevada.

Remote airstrips in the Oregon hills and Idaho flats are buzzing with traffic as planes from as far away as Maine and Tennessee swoop in, bringing assistance from all over the country and swelling the local fire-fighting ranks from 6,000 to 17,000. Four C-141 transports loaned by the U.S. Air Force are bringing in reinforcements and supplies, while 36 helicopters fight the blazes from above. Tent cities are springing up in places with names like Sled Springs, near major conflagrations. Around the clock, caravans of yellow school buses deposit scores of yellow-shirted fire fighters. Senior citizens in Enterprise, Ore., spend their mornings stuffing 1,800 beef and ham ^ sandwiches for the blaze busters' lunch. Sophisticated technology, made up of computers, radar, video cameras and satellite dishes -- dubbed the "mousetrap infrared system" -- helps pinpoint and track the fires.

Though exhausted fire fighters have hardly let up since the conflagration began, late last week uncontrolled blazes still raged over thousands of acres in Oregon, and major fires were still burning in Idaho. It was, according to Jim Fisher of the Oregon department of forestry, the region's most serious outbreak of wildfires in 30 years.