Australian and New Zealand fire crews say they are ready to tackle the particular conditions they'll face as Washington state's wildfires burn into the record books.
Calls for help have been answered from far and near as destructive blazes that have torn through the tinder-dry region, claimed the lives of three firefighters, injured four others and burned 200 homes.
Fire managers from New Zealand and Australia arrived to contribute to a ground campaign led by firefighters from across the West and augmented by US soldiers.
The fires also inspired an outpouring of volunteers who have been invited for the first time in state history to help battle the blazes.
So many fires are burning in the state that managers are taking extreme measures, summoning help from Down Under and 200 US troops from a base in Tacoma in the first such use of active-duty soldiers in nine years.
Jim Whittington, a Bureau of Land Management spokesman in Portland, Oregon, said military assets cannot be used against wildfires until all civilian resources are deployed.
The 70 firefighters from Australia and New Zealand who arrived at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, were being outfitted to fill a critical shortage of mid-level fire managers such as equipment bosses, strike team leaders and supervisors.
The Southern Hemisphere nations have been partners with the US for more than 50 years, able to lend out firefighters because the severest part of their fire seasons occur at opposite times of the year.
The last time the US asked for their help was 2008, with 50 firefighters arriving, while the US sent firefighters abroad in 2007.
Chris Arnol, international liaison for Australia and New Zealand firefighters, said at a news conference in Boise the firefighters will be ready for the mountainous terrain in the Pacific Northwest.
Warren Heslip, a 47-year-old firefighter from Southland, New Zealand, said the new arrivals were ready for the conditions.
"We're used to tall timber and steep territory," he said.
Costs for the international firefighters will be paid by the agency they're assigned to, officials said, though no estimate was yet available.
The biggest fire burning on Monday was in Okanogan County on the Canadian border, where a group of five fires raging out of control became the largest in state history, fire spokesman Rick Isaacson said.
Lightning-sparked fires broke the state record, surpassing blazes that destroyed more than 300 homes in the same county last year.
The US is in the midst of one of its worst fire seasons on record with some 30,000 square kilometres scorched so far.
Thirteen firefighters have died nationwide this year, including the three in Washington state who were killed when they tried to escape the fire in a vehicle, crashed and were overrun by flames.
In Southern California, crews used snow-making cannons to blow water, and planes dropped fire retardant on a 100-acre wildfire burning near the popular Snow Summit ski resort in Big Bear Lake.
In Montana, firefighters travelled by rail to the edge of a thick forest to build fuel breaks to slow or stop a wildfire creeping toward a major rail line and US Highway 2 on Glacier National Park's southern boundary.
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