SPOKANE, Wash. — Fire fighters kept a wary eye Tuesday on rising temperatures and winds that threatened to expand what’s already the largest wildfire on record in Washington.
Similar concerns existed in Southern California, where temperatures up to 106 were forecast for interior valleys and deserts — conditions that could accelerate some of the 16 fires that are still burning in the state but posing little serious risk of major destruction.
Elsewhere, massive fires had produced poor air quality in Idaho and parts of Washington, Oregon and Montana.
The smoke was so thick in northern Washington that firefighting aircraft were grounded before resuming operations Tuesday.
“It’s been a nightmare to breathe,” Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers said. “You couldn’t see nothing with the smoke.”
