MEDFORD, Ore., Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Firefighters expect to have the largest active wildfire in the nation contained by the end of the week, but a spate of fires continued burning throughout the West Monday as dry winds rustled through forests parched by the long, hot summer.
The Biscuit fire was listed as 90-percent controlled Monday and had not grown in size from Sunday's 494,814 acres, which enabled the incident commanders to project a Saturday afternoon containment despite new red-flag weather warnings posted for southern Oregon, Northern California and Utah.
"There is approximately 10 miles of fire line to be built, and that is expected to be completed in the next couple of days," the fire information center in Brookings reported. "Once this is completed and officials feel confident the fire line is secure, then the Biscuit fire will be declared 100-percent contained."
The Biscuit fire has been burning for more than a month and, at one point, had some 17,000 residents of the Illinois River Valley in the southwest corner of the state, packed up and ready to evacuate on short notice as smoke rolled through their rural neighborhoods and turned the afternoon sun a deep orange.
The blaze straddled the Oregon-California state line and still had nearly 4,000 firefighters on the job, including National Guard troops and personnel from as far away as Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
While the fire appeared doomed on Monday, the long fire season in the West was by no means over. There were 22 major fires in nine states, including two stubborn fires not far from the Biscuit blaze -- the 9,300-acre Apple fire and the 64,000-acre Tiller Complex fires.
Cathleen Thompson, a fire information officer for the Apple fire, told United Press International that crews were lighting backfires and burnouts, but had a keen eye on the weather as winds increased and humidity remained low.
"It is windy right now," she said. "It was very active with a lot of burning today, and they'll continue to do some burning as long as the weather permits."
Meanwhile, the Pass Creek Fire in the Shoshone National Forest of Wyoming remained out of control and had grown to more than 6,000 acres Monday. While the forest is popular with backpackers and hikers -- and hosts the largest dog sled race in the Lower 48 -- firefighters have no great love for the rugged terrain.
"The terrain is not helping," admitted Fire Information Officer Lynn Barcalay. "There are some areas that are very inaccessible and have some forest roads that are barely roads. Even calling them 'trails' would be overstating it."
More than 100 firefighters struggled through thick lodgepole pine forests filled with dry logs and dead trees that were killed years ago by insects. Known as snags, the dead trees provide homes to owls and other wild creatures, but they posed a particular threat to firefighters because their roots have decayed and left them balanced precariously and likely to topple over with little warning.
"We've even had live trees come down," said Barcalay. "And they don't give you any indication that they are about to fall."
(Reported by Hil Anderson in Los Angeles)
