Light winds and lower temperatures were in the forecast Monday to help firefighters with wildfires in eastern Washington state that forced the evacuation of 60,000 people in the Spokane area while destroying at least 600 homes, businesses and other structures.The fires in and around Spokane, the state’s second-largest city, burned about 12.5 square miles by Monday morning and filled the sky with smoke and haze. They were 0% contained, Courtney James, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, said. The weather forecast for Monday called cooler temperatures and light winds following strong wind gusts Sunday. No rain was in the forecast.The fires were among dozens of wildfires across the Western U.S. that stretched the ability of federal, state and local agencies to fight them. At least 390 square miles have burned across the state, and some of the fires, including those in the Spokane area, have not been contained.No one hurt or unaccounted for — so farFire and law enforcement officials said there had been no reports of injuries or people unaccounted for — but they stressed it was early in the response effort. Officials also said that the evacuees in Spokane included patients at its U.S. Veterans Affairs hospital. Video from the Spokane area showed buildings on fire, black smoke billowing up near neighborhoods, and the smoking ruins of homes, with only chimneys still standing. Several officials expressed concern that the area does not appear likely to get a break in coming days from the weather, which is expected to remain dry.“We are not out of danger,” U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell said during a news conference Sunday with federal, state and local officials in Spokane. “The next couple of days will be challenging.”Investigators had yet to determine how the blazes started.Spokane was hardly the only place struggling to contain fires. Crews using bulldozers and helicopters continued for a 10th day to fight a fire that has burned nearly 525 square miles (about 1,360 square kilometers) of grassland in western Idaho and eastern Oregon. The area is home to cattle ranches, and authorities said the fire is threatening more than 600 homes and 800 other structures. The National Weather Service issued warnings about the air quality across the northwest. It issued red flag fire warnings for parts of Utah and Montana and western Nebraska, and extreme heat warnings for the southern parts of Arizona, California and Nevada and northern Montana.Hanna writes for the Associated Press.
