Fri, 28 Jul 2000, 10:13am EDT Fire Season Worsens; Idaho Blaze Nears Nuclear Plant, AP Says By Juliann Walsh

Idaho Falls, Idaho, July 28 (Bloomberg) -- The nation's worst wildfire season in four years grew worse as an 18,000-acre blaze near the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory forced hundreds of evacuations, the Associated Press said. A small fire went into a reactor test area at the 890-square-mile nuclear facility before that part was contained, according to a lab spokesman, and no widespread damage has been reported. More than 59,000 fires across the western U.S. have burned 3 million acres, AP said, citing the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Federal officials enlisted the help of the U.S. Army this week for a crash course in firefighting and eventual posting to fight the wildfires, which are also reported in Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Washington.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 28, 2000