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 The deaths came as a fast-moving wildfire forced authorities late
on Wednesday to order the evacuations of about 4,000 homes in Twisp
and Winthrop, towns in the foothills of the Cascade mountains of
north-central Washington, an emergency management team said on
Facebook.
"I was just told that three firefighters died while battling the
Twisp fire and four were injured," Washington governor Jay Inslee
said in a statement.
The local county sheriff in Okanogan, Frank Rogers, said
the firefighters had been in a car accident before flames probably
overtook the vehicle.
Fires have blackened more than 1 million acres (400,000 hectares)
across the arid Western region, prompting fire managers to call in
help from the U.S. Army and abroad to reinforce civilian crews.
 Okanogan County officials were continuing to expand the evacuation
zones late on Wednesday, and warned residents that forecasts over
the next two days indicated strong winds that could fan the flames
across dried-out forest.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown toured the fire area in her state on
Wednesday and joined Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter in calling up
state National Guard troops backed by military aircraft to help
combat blazes in their respective states.
Based on "extreme fire danger", Washington state's Department of
Natural Resources said on Wednesday it was moving to shut down all
industrial forest activities, including timber harvest operations
and road construction, across almost all of its eastern forested
areas, believed to be the first such action in more than 20 years.
Inslee said he requested a federal emergency declaration, which
would free up resources to help cover firefighting costs.
This week, the national year-to-date tally of area burned passed 7
million acres (2.9 million hectares). That figure had not been
reached so early in the year for two decades.
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To the south of the Twisp blaze, firefighters had dug containment
lines around about half of a wildfire burning on the outskirts of
Chelan, Washington, a resort town, fire information officer Lorena
Wisehart said.
In central Oregon, wildfires near the rural community of John Day
had destroyed three dozen homes and threatened many others.
In the mountains of north-central Idaho, blazes that grew to 100
square miles (260 square km) forced evacuations on Tuesday from
dozens of homes near the small town of Weippe.
Fires in and around the Nez Perce Indian Reservation have consumed
50 homes and 80 outbuildings near the logging town of Kamiah, Idaho.
In California, suffering its worst drought on record, about 2,500
people were forced to flee Christian camps east of Fresno at Hume
Lake as the so-called Rough Fire crossed Highway 180, officials
said.
Another blaze that broke out on Wednesday near the northern
California city of Livermore expanded to 2,500 acres (1012 hectares)
in just hours, fire officials said.
(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, Laura Zuckerman in Salmon,
Idaho and Courtney Sherwood in Portland, Ore.; Additional reporting
by Alex Dobuzinskis and Victoria Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Writing
by Eric M. Johnson; Editing by Peter Cooney and Dominic Evans)
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