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Wildfire bears down on Montana towns as West burns

Several thousand people remained under evacuation orders as the Richard Spring Fire advanced across the sparsely-populated Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.

Wildfire bears down on Montana towns as West burns

An aircraft drops fire retardant to slow the spread of the Richard Spring fire, east of Lame Deer, Mont., Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021.

A wildfire bore down on rural southeastern Montana towns on Thursday as continuing hot, dry weather throughout the West drove flames through more than a dozen states.

Several thousand people remained under evacuation orders as the Richard Spring Fire advanced across the sparsely-populated Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.

Meanwhile, the Dixie Fire — which started July 13 and is the largest wildfire burning in the nation — threatened a dozen small communities in the northern Sierra Nevada even though its southern end was mostly corralled by fire lines.

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The blaze had burned over 780 square miles (over 2,000 square kilometers), destroyed some 550 homes and nearly obliterated the town of Greenville. It was 30% contained.

On Wednesday, the Montana fire displayed extreme behavior and had grown by tens of thousands of acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The blaze, which was only 15% surrounded, began Sunday and powerful gusts caused it to explode across more than 230 square miles (600 square kilometers).

By nightfall, the fire had crept within about 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) of the evacuated town of Lame Deer, leaping over a highway where officials had hoped to stop it.

Rancher Jimmy Peppers sat on his horse east of town, watching an orange glow grow near the site of his house.

“I didn’t think it would cross the highway so I didn’t even move my farm equipment,” said Peppers, who spent the afternoon herding his cattle onto a neighbor’s pasture closer to town. “I don’t know if I’ll have a house in the morning.”

The town of about 2,000 people is home to the tribal headquarters and several subdivisions and is surrounded by rugged, forested terrain. By late Wednesday a second fire was closing in on Lame Deer from the west, while the Richard Spring fire raged to the east.

The National Weather Service said a ridge of high pressure moving into the area would pump temperatures into the 90s over the weekend.

Drought conditions have left trees, grass and brush bone-dry throughout many Western states, leaving them ripe for ignition. Montana alone had 25 large wildfires burning, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

At the same time, California and some other states were facing flows of monsoonal moisture that were too high to bring real rain but could create thunderstorms bringing new fire risks from dry lightning and erratic winds.

Scientists have said climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. The more than 100 large wildfires in the American West come as parts of Europe are also burning.

(With AP inputs)

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