A wildfire burning in Colorado's heavily populated Front Range region has burned dozens of homes and outbuildings, while a second fire crept within a quarter-mile of evacuated homes near Denver on Thursday.
Authorities said they were hopeful that hundreds of threatened homes could be saved. But firefighters working in the tree-covered foothills on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains faced sweltering temperatures, and some were sidelined by heat exhaustion.
The struggle to contain the blazes came after authorities said Wednesday that a person was killed in a wildfire west of Lyons, Colorado. The person's remains were found inside one of five houses that burned.
Almost 100 large fires are raging across the West. The largest, in Northern California, has burned more than 400 houses and other structures, officials reported.
New, large fires were reported in Idaho, southeast Montana and north Texas.
About two dozen homes and outbuildings were damaged or destroyed in a wildfire, near Loveland, Colorado, authorities disclosed after an initial survey of the burn area.
Meanwhile the Quarry Fire southwest of the Denver suburb of Littleton encroached on several large subdivisions after people in 600 homes were ordered to evacuate.
By Thursday afternoon, firefighting aircraft zipped back and forth between the blaze and a nearby reservoir. Planes skimmed the surface to scoop up water and hovering helicopters pumped water into their tanks before returning to the fire to dump their loads.
Jim and Meg Lutes watched from an overlook near their house northeast of the fire as smoke plumed up from the ridges. Their community west of Littleton was not under evacuation orders, but the couple had been ready to start packing a day earlier when flames could be seen blanketing the mountains.
"It can come over that hill pretty quick if the wind changes," said Jim Lutes, 64, pointing to a nearby ridge.
Five firefighters were injured Wednesday, including four who had heat exhaustion, said Mark Techmeyer, a spokesperson with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.
The fire was in steep terrain that made it difficult to access but had been held to less than one square mile (1.8 square kilometres) with no houses yet destroyed, authorities said. It remained a major hazard, with hot temperatures and low humidity elevating the danger.
The fire was discovered Tuesday night by a deputy on patrol in what authorities described as "open areas." It was small at first but quickly spread.
"I think anytime that you see a small fire in an area like that at 9:00 at night, it makes you scratch your head a little bit," Techmeyer said at a Wednesday briefing when asked if he thought the fire was suspicious.
On Thursday he said the fire has "proven to be one of the most challenging firefights I've seen," as helicopters passed overhead.
He was flanked by hillsides where firefighters labored to keep the blaze from hopping a road separating the conflagration from populated areas.
"If we lose that fight, the fire is coming this way," Techmeyer said, motioning toward dense neighbourhoods and Littleton.
The ranks of firefighters doubled since the day before, from 75 to 155, most of them volunteers. No structures had been lost as of Thursday afternoon but authorities expected the battle to be a long one.
Defence contractor Lockheed Martin, which operates a large facility just outside the evacuation zone, closed it as a precaution.
Miles to the north near Lyons, officials lifted some evacuations and reported making progress on the Stone Canyon Fire, which has killed one person and destroyed five houses. The cause is under investigation.
California's arson-caused Park Fire northeast of Chico continued to grow, covering about 610 square miles (1,590 square kilometres) as of Thursday morning. That's more than 25 times the size of New York's Manhattan Island.
Losses also increased. The latest updates tallied 437 structures destroyed and 42 damaged, according to Cal Fire. The fire was 18 per cent contained.
Authorities said they faced critical fire weather in the coming days with potential triple-digit temperatures, thunderstorms and erratic winds. Almost 6,000 personnel were helping battle the Park Fire as more fire crews arrived from Utah and Texas.
Scientists say extreme wildfires are becoming more common and destructive in the U.S. West and others parts of the world as climate change warms the planet and droughts become more severe.
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
U.S. forecasters are warning of destructive waves, devastating winds and flash floods through the week as Hurricane Milton makes its way from the Yucatan Peninsula toward Florida.
Florida's Gulf Coast braced Tuesday for the impact of Hurricane Milton's winds and expected massive storm surge, which could bring destruction to areas already reeling from Helene's devastation 12 days ago and still recovering from Ian's wrath two years ago.
Kamala Harris called Donald Trump 'incredibly irresponsible' for spreading falsehoods about the federal response to Hurricane Helene's destruction, offering especially sharp words as a new storm bears down on Florida with just weeks until Election Day.
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Kamala Harris called Donald Trump 'incredibly irresponsible' for spreading falsehoods about the federal response to Hurricane Helene's destruction, offering especially sharp words as a new storm bears down on Florida with just weeks until Election Day.
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Monday there are 'a lot of bad genes' in the United States, while discussing murders allegedly committed by immigrants living illegally in the United States.
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Communities across Canada, including in Waterloo Region, are marking one year since the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.
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Saskatoon’s Prairie Harm Reduction (PHR) says a staff member arrived to work on Thursday morning to find someone at its doorstep, unresponsive from a suspected drug overdose.
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Saskatoon mayoral candidate Cynthia Block says the city needs a new deal with Ottawa to keep life affordable.
Ontario Provincial Police are investigating a fatal crash of a side-by-side off-road vehicle east of Parry Sound that killed one and injured another Friday.
A teacher working on a First Nation in northwestern Ontario has been charged with sexually assaulting a minor.
The North Bay Battalion hockey team is mourning the loss of a former player who died at 23 after a battle with cancer.
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Five vehicles collided in Orillia Monday night during rush hour.
The cause of a fire that caused significant damage to a home in Oro-Medonte over the weekend is under investigation.
Police are driving attention to an unsolved homicide that happened in broad daylight over a year ago in Tay Township in hopes someone holds the key that can move the case forward.
Delays are to be expected Tuesday morning after a crash in Essex County. According to OPP, the crash happened at Walker Road and Highway 3 in Tecumseh.
The Ambassador Bridge border crossing was 'temporarily closed' for a period of time, according to the Canada Border Services Agency website.
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The day after a minivan was set ablaze outside Vancouver City Hall, a 78-year-old man has been criminally charged.
A Canadian soldier who was exposed to toxic chemicals from burn pits while serving in Afghanistan has been awarded full medical compensation for testicular cancer after Veterans Affairs initially denied his claim.
Nearly two years after a man was stabbed to death in downtown Kelowna, RCMP have made an arrest in the case.
NDP Leader David Eby is promising to offer a $75-million loan forgiveness program to entice doctors, nurses and heath professionals to expand health-care services in rural British Columbia.
Three young suspects have been arrested in connection with a swarming attack on a teenager in B.C.'s Okanagan last week – and authorities have asked the public to stop circulating disturbing videos of the incident.
A Lethbridge police officer involved in a scandal involving former Lethbridge New Democrat MLA Shannon Phillips has been reprimanded.
Lethbridge police say a man who escaped from a psychiatric ward at the Chinook Regional Hospital has been found.
While the summer may be over, construction season in Lethbridge is not.
The Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) is the latest organization to call on the Doug Ford government to re-open dialogue with an airline service that transports lower-income Canadians to crucial medical care far from home.
For decades, Mississauga First Nation has known that human remains from their land were at the Canadian Museum of History.
Greater Sudbury in partnership with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, is hosting the organization's annual mining conference.
As millions in federal funding flow into a Labrador group whose claims of Inuit identity have been rejected by Indigenous organizations across Canada, a national Inuit leader worries the Liberal government is putting the rights of Indigenous Peoples at risk.
He may not have logged the fastest time or even gone the full distance, but residents of a Newfoundland town agree the goat who unexpectedly joined the local weekend half marathon was the event's undisputed champion.
A mother in a community where the cost of living is one of the highest in the country says grocery prices are 'inhumane' and retailers are putting profits ahead of people’s basic human right to food.
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