By Raquel Rutledge
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Copyright 2007 Journal Sentinel Inc.
WISCONSIN — State forestry officials scrambled Sunday to contain more than 60 wildfires that broke out as low humidity, high temperatures and high winds converged to create the most dangerous fire conditions Wisconsin had seen in the last several years.
Several structures were lost in Douglas County, and more were threatened, said Catherine Regan, a state Department of Natural Resources wildfire prevention specialist.
There were no reports of injuries, Regan said.
State resources were spread so thin - with hundreds of firefighters dispatched across the state - that the DNR called in help from Minnesota.
Minnesota sent a helicopter and a CL-215 "waterbomber" air tanker capable of scooping water from lakes.
With Sunday night's forecast calling for continued low relative humidity, Regan expected fire crews would be forced to work throughout the night.
She said one of the larger fires, the Foxboro fire in Douglas County, which grew to more than 600 acres before being contained, was ignited by sparks from a train moving over a railroad track.
The Pioneer fire, which was burning several hundred acres in Bayfield County, was still going late Sunday.
"Quite a few of these fires have crowned," said Blair Anderson, chief of forest fire management with the DNR. "They're very fast moving and very dangerous to the people working on them."
A red flag warning was issued for the northern half of Wisconsin early Sunday. The warning is issued when conditions exist or are predicted for the spread of wildfires.
Crews from southern Wisconsin were moved north Saturday night in anticipation of an outbreak of fires Sunday, Anderson said.
"I can't remember the last time we had a red flag warning over such a broad area as this," he said. "It's been one of the busiest days in a long, long time."
