Heavy rains in Sierra Nevada by Jana Turcsanyiova

The Sierra Nevada stretches 400 miles (650 km), from Fredonyer Pass in the north to Tehachapi Pass in the south.It is bounded on the west by California's Central Valley, and on the east by the Great Basin.

More than 60 other wildfires burned in South and West – in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington,...

A tiny mountain town went up in flames and eight homes were destroyed as a 63,270-acre wildfire continued its weeklong rampage through the Sierra Nevada.
On Saturday, the fire took out houses and trailers in Pine Creek, part of a more broadly scattered community known as Kennedy Meadows, about 120 miles north of Los Angeles. It earlier burned eight outbuildings and lodges.
About 20,000 firefighters from 41 states and Puerto Rico were fighting more than 320 active fires around the state, and more were on the way from Mexico, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

A letup in the wind aided firefighters in eastern Washington state battling a wildfire that erupted Thursday in a heavily wooded part of the Spokane Valley. It destroyed at least 13 houses and forced 200 residents to evacuate. No injuries have been reported, althought Tom Tirey, 49, who has lived in the area for 10 years, , spending more than two hours in a hog-trough while the blaze flared around him. He survived.

Fire officials say this is the worst season since 1996 with more than 3 milion acres already burned.Fires have been burning at one time this year than during any other period in recorded California history. This was truly national disaster.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080714/ap_on_re_us/wildfires;_ylt=AvVudpE2PDWXlE29yeBqUvKs0NUE

by Jana Turcsanyiova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Lucia Adamova