Major Fires Plague 7 States As Season Gets Off Quickly
LOS ANGELES, July 7— Major forest and brush fires were burning todayin seven states at the start of what forestry and firefighting officials say is likely to be a hot, dry summer around the nation.
''We're off to a pretty fast start this year,'' said Matt Mathes, a spokesman for the United States Forest Service in Sacramento. ''There is quite a bit of fire activity going on now. We are seeing increasing fire danger in the Western United States.''
Firefighters organized in military fashion battled wildfires today in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Alaska, said Arnold F. Hartigan, the public affairs officer of the Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, an office that coordinates the operations of various Federal firefighting agencies.
Other fires in Oregon, Nevada and Georgia have been contained over the past 24 hours. #3 of the Hottest Spots The Forest Service reported that some of the largest fires today were near Craig, Colo., in the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico, and in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in northwestern Wyoming, with each covering thousands of acres.
The fire near Gila, in its eighth day, has consumed 7,700 acres. The Bridger-Teton fire, which officials said might have been set off by July 4 fireworks, was burning so strongly that a hot wind was carrying embers a quarter of a mile in advance of its spread, hampering firefighting efforts.
A fire near Lake Elsinore in Southern California that consumed 1,300 acres before being contained early Thursday was started by a spark struck when a man loaded abandoned cars onto a flatbed truck, said a local Forestry Department official, Tim Spann. ''That's how dry it is out here,'' Mr. Spann added.
After three years of drought, heat and dryness in Southern California are reaching the levels of the Mojave Desert. The area is thus one of those classified by the Forest Service as in ''extreme danger'' of wildfire, the highest of five risk designations.
So far this year, said Karen Terrill of the California Department of Forestry, the state has had 2,795 wildfires, slightly above the five-year average of 2,584 at this time of the year. Fewer Fires Burn More Acres
Nationwide, the number of fires so far this year stands at about 75 percent of the number last year at this time, but the number of acres burned is about 30 percent higher, said Lee Barkow, chief of fires and aviation for the Federal Bureau of Land Management in Washington.
As of midday today, said Mr. Hartigan of the Interagency Fire Center, 31,810 fires had consumed 1,117,325 acres since the start of the year. In the last 24 hours alone, he said, 265 fires had burned 29,942 acres of woods and fields.
Weather patterns, lightning strikes and the varied human causes of fires will determine the seriousness of this summer's fire season, officials said.
Mr. Barkow said that 4,000 to 5,500 people were deployed around the nation in Federal firefighting efforts. These people are being sent from one blaze to another.
With four serious fire seasons behind them, firefighters have gained experience, Mr. Hartigan said. He said military personnel who joined in battling the blazes in Yellowstone National Park last year have since received special training in firefighting. The military personnel can be called on if needed.
Mr. Barkow described this as a transition year for firefighting agencies, as they work to develop measures to conform to new regulations prompted by last year's serious forest fires.
Under the new requirements, fire officials must file daily written reports certifying that any fire allowed to burn will remain within prescribed limits for the next 24 hours or that sufficient forces are available to bring it under control.
''Right now I would say that largely all our fires are being treated as wildfires and receiving initial attack actions,'' he said.
Mr. Mathes of the Forest Service said: ''We're concentrating on getting people to the sites of these fires before they get big. We have plenty of resources in place to organize the campaigns and plenty of air tankers, helicopters and engines. But the competition for these resources is starting to increase.'' Frequent Lightning Strikes
At particular risk now are areas of Arizona and New Mexico, where Mary E. Zabinski, fire information officer for the Southwest Area Coordination Center, said conditions were worse than they had been for 15 years.
She said at least 30 fires were burning today in the two states, in unseasonably dry conditions with frequent lightning strikes. Miss Zabinski said all crews and equipment in the area were in use and the region was seeking help from other parts of the country.
Lightning struck about 2,100 times Wednesday night in Arizona, New Mexico and southern Colorado, she said.
Mr. Hartigan said lightning unaccompanied by significant rainfall was responsible for 75 percent of the fires in the area between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas. In more urban areas, 90 percent of the fires are caused by people.
Other areas that have been designated by the Forest Service as in ''extreme'' danger of wildfires this summer are Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and portions of Idaho and the Northwest.