Viking_Yearbook_95

Wester^i Forest Fires T ens of thousands of firefighters fought a summer-long battle against scores of fires that burned more than three million acres of woodlands across the parched Western states. So many young people were fighting fires in Idaho by late August that the state colleges allowed preregistered students to enter classes as much as three weeks late. Residents of mountain homes near Boise were displaced by a single fire that consumed a range of well- known locations, including the Jackson Hole ski valley and western Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. The firefighters ranged from seasoned pros to raw recruits. In California's Sierra Nevadas, exhausted and disheveled men and women declared victory on August 24 over the 46,800 cottonwood fire that had burned for eight days. One Forest Service firefighter looked at a bedraggled gathering of singed, soot-covered fire­ fighters as they took a break near Loyalton. The scene, he said, looked like "a hippie Courtesy ofAssociated Press