HAPPY CAMP, Calif. — Crews Monday were battling a wildfire driven by warmer, drier weather in a Northern California forest. Officials have evacuated about 250 homes.
Fire spokesman Dave Schmitt said temperatures near the blaze in the Klamath National Forest were expected to reach 80 degrees on Monday, a few degrees warmer than the previous day. Crews planned to continue focusing on creating defensible space around threatened homes.
The fire has burned through about 98 square miles near the town of Happy Camp and was 15 percent contained. It was threatening 695 homes.
The wildfire is among 17 that were sparked by lightning in the forest on Aug. 11. The other fires are either fully contained or approaching full containment.
More than 2,100 firefighters and 19 helicopters fighting the Klamath fire took advantage of the better weather over the weekend by laying hoses, constructing fire lines and clearing brush from around evacuated communities.
Last week, the US Forest Service unveiled a plan that will allow loggers to remove trees killed in a massive wildfire last year.
The decision announced Wednesday will allow logging on 52 square miles of forests blackened in the Rim Fire, which burned 400 square miles of the Stanislaus National Forest, Yosemite National Park backcountry, and private timber land.
Officials said they tried to balance competing interests, but environmentalists called it a travesty.