Army Called In to Fight Fires in West

SEATTLE — Authorities battling dozens of major fires in the West called on the Army on Saturday to reinforce firefighting resources stretched to their limits.

Renee Snyder of the National Interagency Fire Center said a battalion of 500 soldiers, probably from Ft. Carson, Colo., would be sent to one of 39 major fires.

They would join more than 17,600 people already on the lines in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

She said the soldiers would probably be sent to California, where 10 major fires were burning, driven by gusty winds and fueled by bone-dry brush and tinder.

One of California’s largest blazes was the so-called Fork Fire in the Mendocino National Forest, which had consumed more than 28,000 acres and kept residents on alert for possible evacuation.

Eight firefighters were slightly injured battling a 40,000-acre blaze north of San Luis Obispo, Calif. That blaze also destroyed two summer homes and a mobile home.

Near Sonora, 10,000 acres had burned and hundreds of residents were warned to evacuate.

In hard-hit Oregon, National Guard troops were expected to join firefighting efforts today, Snyder said. National Guard troops were also activated in Montana, she added.