"Firefighters in Washington state and Oregon were grappling on Wednesday with blazes that have blackened more than 200 square miles of terrain across the Pacific Northwest, forcing hundreds of residents to flee their homes."
"In Washington, some 1,700 firefighters worked to contain a pair of fires that have charred a combined 85,000 acres east of the Cascade Range, destroying at least three homes and several outbuildings, said state Emergency Management Division spokesman Mark Clemens.
The so-called Colockum Tarps fire, which broke out on Saturday morning and quickly spread through dry brush near Malaga, had burned over some 60,000 acres of mountain slopes toward the Columbia River by Wednesday afternoon, Clemens said."
Eric M. Johnson and Teresa Carson report for Reuters August 1, 2013.
Advertisement 
