Forest Fires

The Sundowners, a seasonal fire crew assigned to the Los Padres National Forest, have a special bond with the four young firefighters killed last month while battling a wildfire in Washington state. Like the victims of the nation's deadliest forest fire since 1994, the Sundowners are mostly college-aged rookies eager to face real flames. They, too, were hired primarily for "mop-up" duty--the job of going in behind the U.S.

. — An enormous wildfire that forced the evacuation of several mountain communities in eastern Arizona has grown to more than 300 square miles, sending smoke and haze across five states and as far east as Iowa, authorities said. Officials said the blaze has burned nearly 193,000 acres since it started more than a week ago near the White Mountain town of Alpine. Authorities believe an abandoned campfire may have sparked the blaze. The flames have destroyed five buildings but no serious injuries have been reported.

In the hours before she lighted a campfire that, so far, has burned 62,000 acres of the Sequoia National Forest, Peri Van Brunt allegedly smoked methamphetamine and stalked her estranged husband, following him to the Roads End Resort near where the fire started last Sunday, according to a federal criminal complaint filed here Friday. A tearful Van Brunt, 45, appeared in U.S. District Court on charges of setting the fire "willfully and without authority."

Fire Season: Field Notes From a Wilderness Lookout Philip Connors Ecco Press; 246 pp., $24.99 With its glowing orange cover and title, "Fire Season" looks like another western tale of man versus flame. It turns out to be far rarer than that: a quirky meditation on the lonely pleasures of summers in a 7-by-7-foot lookout tower in a particularly wild patch of the Southwest. Every April, Philip Connors leaves behind his bartending job and his wife, Martha, in a small New Mexico town and heads for Apache Peak in the nearby Gila National Forest.

Twelve firefighters were injured Wednesday as they battled forest fires sweeping along the Mediterranean coast toward the French Riviera, authorities said.

Forest fires were burning out of control after destroying 15,000 acres in eastern Spain, officials said Monday.

More than 1,100 forest fires burning in central Indonesia have enveloped the region in a choking haze that has endangered health and delayed flights. Bush fires have sent smoke billowing over Sumatra and Kalimantan in recent months, and the cloud has also spread to Malaysia. Officials have distributed face masks to schools and residents who request them.

More than 1,200 Malaysian firefighters are expected in Sumatra today to help fight forest fires blamed for a smoky haze that has shrouded much of Southeast Asia for weeks, an Indonesian minister said. Speaking after a meeting with President Suharto, Coordinating Minister for Public Welfare Azwar Anas also told reporters that Malaysia will provide three C-130 aircraft to seed clouds to induce rain to douse the fires.

Aircraft from around Europe dropped water on raging forest fires in drought-stricken Portugal as firefighters and soldiers evacuated hamlets near the town of Miranda do Corvo. A civilian was killed Monday when he was struck by a firetruck while helping battle a blaze. Firefighters also found the burnt body of an elderly woman, but it was unclear how she had died, an official said.

From Jordanian firefighters to Greek aircraft, a rare outpouring of international support for Israel helped the nation battle its worst-ever forest fire Friday, but the blaze continued to rage out of control. The death toll was revised to at least 41 people, according to Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. They included 36 prison guards whose bus was engulfed in flames Thursday as they rushed to help evacuate a nearby prison. The toll includes two police officers who were trapped in the same firestorm that ensnared the bus. One passenger car reportedly was able to escape only by speeding through the flames.

A raging forest fire in northern Israel killed at least 37 prison guards Thursday when their bus was engulfed by flames while they rushed to evacuate a detention facility. Nearby firefighters tried desperately to rescue them as some guards hugged the floor of the vehicle in search of shelter, witnesses said. Dozens of people were injured as the wildfire continued to burn out of control late Thursday night in the usually lush Carmel Forest near the port city of Haifa. Among the injured was the head of Haifa's police department, Deputy Cmdr.

Tatiana Dyment found her 70-year-old mother sitting in the bathtub, her head leaning sideways and cold water from the showerhead still streaming down her back. "She could have been dead for two to three days, doctors suppose," said the psychologist, who had rushed back to Moscow from vacation in Croatia after she couldn't reach her mother by phone. "The windows in her apartment on the sixth floor were wide open and every piece of furniture in the apartment smelled of burning" from the thick white smoke hanging in the air outside.

When fires rage through forests, they often char acres upon acres of plant life and scar a landscape for years. Some plants have learned to use this destructive force to their advantage -- moving into competitors' now-empty territory or producing seeds that burst open from the heat. Now researchers have identified another way in which widespread flames benefit some fire-following plant species: A family of chemicals in the smoke makes the plants hypersensitive to lower, altered light levels, triggering the seeds to sprout with thicker, sturdier stems than they otherwise would have.

A fire roaring through the Los Padres National Forest about 26 miles east of Santa Maria has grown, charring more than 40,000 acres and forcing some residents to flee. Authorities issued evacuation orders Thursday that cover about 150 homes and ranches, most in the Cottonwood Canyon area. About 1,600 firefighters are attacking the blaze, which started Saturday. The cause is unknown. Firefighting efforts have been hampered by inaccessible terrain and volatile winds. -- Steve Chawkins

As firefighters battled a 29,000-acre forest fire east of Santa Maria on Wednesday, investigators asked for the public's help in identifying the driver of a late-model Chevy van last seen in the area where the blaze started. U.S. Forest Service special agents want to talk to the owner of a 2004-05 Chevy van that witnesses saw Saturday on Sierra Madre Road. The first plumes of smoke from the fire were reported about 2:50 p.m. that day. Authorities aren't calling the driver a suspect, but they say they want to fill in information from other witnesses as to why the tan or gold-colored van was in the area.

He's a war hero who became a media mogul, celebrity pitchman, pop icon and philanthropist. He's so famous he was given his own ZIP Code, 20252, to handle the fan mail. He is 65 years old but has no intention of retiring. In fact, he looks fitter than ever. Working outdoors with a shovel will do that. Smokey Bear was born in August 1944, sired by a committee of ad men and government bureaucrats hoping to safeguard a key war material: wood.

Forest fires in the Sierra Nevada have grown larger, more frequent and more damaging in the last two decades, according to a study that suggests much of the blame rests with the government's century-long war on wildfire. The study, published online this month in the journal Ecosystems, found that between 1984 and 2006, the proportion of burned areas where no trees survived increased, on average, to nearly 30%, from 17%. Climate is playing some role, the study said.