Wildfires Force Firefighters To Pick Their Battles in California

SAN FRANCISCO — With hundreds of wildfires raging across remote, rugged parts of California for a second week, fire officials have been forced to strategically choose which to fight and which to leave to burn for weeks or even months.

The number of fires burning in central and Northern California — more than 1,000 according to state fire officials — means authorities can't send firefighters to battle every blaze, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service, Jason Kirchner, said yesterday.

"It's like eating an elephant — you've got to eat it one bite at a time," he said.

It's also impossible to attack wildfires in some rugged, remote areas because the risk to firefighters is too great, he said.

"We have to take a step back, figure out where the best place is to make a stand and sometimes wait for the fire to come to us in those situations," he said. "We've got to pick the battles we can win."

Long-running wildfires are not unusual in California. What is extraordinary this year is the number of fires burning at the same time, Mr. Kirchner said. The weekend of June 21, some 1,200 fires were burning — a figure Forest Service officials said appeared to be an all-time record in California.

The Forest Service put the figure at about 600 yesterday. It attributed the gains to its tactic of attacking small fires first, and to significant assistance from other states and Canada.

State officials, however, counted more than 1,000 ongoing blazes. The source of the discrepancy was apparently a different counting method.

Also unusual, Mr. Kirchner said, was that there have been no significant injuries to civilians or firefighters even though some 570 square miles have burned in California this season.