BRIAN MELLEY
Associated Press Writer
SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. (AP) -- Firefighters fought to control a 37,000-acre wildland blaze that threatened a rustic mountain village in the Sierra Nevada.
Flames roared Friday to within a half-mile of the 200 homes in Kennedy Meadows, about 160 miles north of Los Angeles.
Anxious residents, who were asked to leave the area, watched through binoculars as flames shot into the sky and thick black smoke poured from a controlled burn that firefighters set to try to halt the blaze's advance.
``I'm just going to stay here and watch and see,'' said Ann McMillan, who has lived in the town for 35 years. ``I can't even take my camera out and take a picture. I'm sick.''
No homes had been lost, but the flames destroyed an abandoned Boy Scout lodge. Eight firefighters suffered minor injuries, mostly sprained ankles or knees from battling the flames in rugged, steep terrain.
To turn back the flames, firefighters bulldozed a trench on one side of the village and then set a fire that burned up a hillside toward the oncoming blaze. Firefighters hoped the controlled burn would deprive the wildfire of the fuel it needed to keep moving.
``We used the fire against itself,'' said Chief Walt Chacon of the California Department of Forestry.
Elsewhere in the West, fires charred wildland in what has become the nation's worst fire season since 1996.
In Idaho, firefighters were able to surround a 30,000-acre blaze Friday that had forced the evacuation of hundreds of employees at a nuclear facility.
Decreasing winds quelled the flames just outside the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, and Friday afternoon fire crews built a second fire line to contain it.
The lab's Advanced Test Reactor was being repaired and its operations weren't affected, spokeswoman Stacey Francis said. Utility crews were busy replacing 52 electrical poles damaged by the fire, and tests were being done to measure any radioactive release.
A 40-mile fire line was keeping a 23,000-acre wildfire in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado from spreading.
The Utah division of the Bureau of Land Management said a 12,000-acre fire near Leamington, 87 miles south of Salt Lake City, was about 40 percent contained Friday. At least four fires in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest had burned nearly 2,100 acres.
In Washington, firefighters were able to contain a 6,500-acre range fire in the Columbia River Gorge that had threatened wheat crops and a Yakama Nation ceremonial site. Farmers had cut their own fire trails with tractors, trying to protect crops from the blaze about 12 miles southeast of Goldendale.
``We still have some hot areas the crews want to keep an eye on, but it's looking pretty good,'' said Tammie Wilson, a state Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman.
Firefighters in Montana were nearing containment of a fire that burned about 17,500 acres east of Helena in the scenic Canyon Ferry Lake region and forced about 300 families from the homes.
Wind fueled a 3,500-acre fire on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona to 5,000 acres in about three hours Friday.
A makeshift camp for firefighters had to be moved because the fire was advancing unpredictably, said fire spokeswoman Chadeen Palmer. Flames reached heights of 100 feet, and the fire was threatening a power line to the tiny community of Cibecue.
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