(Adds details on fires in Washington state; smoke advisory in
Colorado; latest wildfire statistics, spending figures)
By Eric M. Johnson
SEATTLE, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Emergency officials extended
evacuation orders on Friday to additional towns threatened by a
deadly array of wildfires in north-central Washington state as
dozens of blazes swirled across the drought-parched Pacific
Northwest and surrounding regions.
President Barack Obama signed a federal declaration of
emergency for Washington state on Friday, authorizing the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency
Management Agency to coordinate relief efforts in 11 counties
and several Indian reservations hard hit by wildfires.
Authorities late on Thursday ordered the population of
Tonasket, a riverfront hamlet of about 1,000 residents just 25
miles (40 km) south of the Canadian border, to flee their homes
as flames closed in.
About 25 miles (40 km) farther south along the same river,
emergency officials early on Friday issued additional evacuation
orders for parts of Okanogan, a larger town at the western edge
of the Colville Indian Reservation, urging evacuees in a
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) posting "not to wait for door-to-door notification."
Both communities were in the path of flames from a cluster
of wildfires dubbed the Okanogan Complex, which has doubled in
size since Thursday to scorch some 161,000 acres (65,154
hectares) of brush and dry timber about 115 miles (185 km)
northeast of Seattle.
The Okanogan Complex includes the so-called Twisp River
fire, which killed three firefighters and injured four others on
Wednesday night after forcing the evacuation of some 4,000
households in the towns of Twisp and Winthrop about 30 miles (48
km) west of Okanogan in the foothills of the Cascades.
Further evacuations were ordered on Friday around Nespelem,
a tiny settlement in the interior of the Colville Reservation,
where homes and businesses were threatened by a separate blaze
that has blackened some 88,000 acres (35,600 hectares) of tribal
lands.
DESTRUCTIVE, DEADLY TALLY
At least 70 large wildfires have been raging since last week
through several bone-dry Western states, the bulk of them in
Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California and Montana, the National
Interagency Fire Center in Boise reported.
More than 100 homes and dozens of outbuildings have been
lost, but only one civilian death has been reported in the
latest rash of fires - a 70-year-old woman who slipped and fell
as she was securing her backyard chickens before fleeing her
Idaho home last weekend.
Smoke and soot carried hundreds of miles (km) by prevailing
winds from the Northwest to the Rockies settled over parts of
Colorado, prompting a "wildfire smoke health advisory" that
urged elderly residents, young children and people with
respiratory ailments to stay indoors.
The advisory was posted on Friday for Denver and the entire
the northern tier of Colorado, from the Utah line to the Kansas
border.
The Western blazes, under attack by more than 30,000
firefighters and support personnel, have collectively charred
more than 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) of landscape in the
midst of frequent dry-lightning strikes and a heat wave gripping
the region.
With manpower and other resources stretched thin, fire
managers have turned to the U.S. Army, the National Guard and
even personnel from Canada, Australia and New Zealand to furnish
reinforcements.
So far this year, U.S. wildland blazes have claimed the
lives of at least 13 firefighters, four more than died in the
line of duty during all of 2014, the fire center said.
Year to date, wildfires nationwide have scorched nearly 7.3
million acres (2.9 million hectares), or 11,400 square miles
(29,500 sq km), an area roughly equivalent to the combined land
mass of Vermont and Delaware.
That tally, exceeding the annual 10-year average for the
past decade by 2.2 million acres (890,000 hectares), has already
cost the federal government more than $1 billion in fire
suppression, according to the fire agency.