Several wildfires sparked by lightning near Wenatchee, Wash., triggered evacuations in the area as changes in winds continue to fuel the flames. KING's Joe Fryer reports.
As many as 110 wildfires are burning Monday in central Washington after?lightning?sparked more blazes over the weekend, just as hundreds were forced to evacuate from a massive wildfire in Idaho.
With no rain expected, a large collection of central Washington fires are charring land in the state's?Chelan, Okanogan, Kittitas and Yakima counties, Seattle's NBC-affiliated KING 5 reported.?Dozens of homes are threatened by the 6,500-acre Byrd Canyon fire near Entiat, Wash.
To the south, the nearly 500-acre Canyons Fire near Wenatchee, Wash., has burned about 500 acres, while 180 area homes were evacuated, KING 5 reported.
For Wenatchee residents, the wildfires are too close for comfort.
"Inches away from causing me just a lot of heartache and frustration and grief," Wenatchee resident Archie Brown told KING 5.
Elsewhere in Washington state, about 60 homeowners were forced to evacuate because of blazes near the Grand Coulee Dam,?KING 5 reported.
Lightning was also to blame in creating 15 new wildfires in Idaho on Sunday, according to The Idaho Statesman.
"Four fires are giving us a little bit of a problem, but the other 11 we?re doing well on," Boise National Forest spokesman David Seesholtz told the Statesman.
Idaho's 408-wquare-mile Mustang Complex fires is still burning after being ignited by lightning in July. Hundreds were evacuated from their homes on Sunday, as the flames came closer to two communities, Reuters reported.
The summer's hot, dry conditions have facilitated prime conditions for wildfires, which have charred more than 7.1 million acres nationwide so far in 2012, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. On Monday, NOAA announced that this summer has been the third hottest on record in the?contiguous United States.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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