Firefighters gain ground against flames around Spokane, Washington

Firefighters making big strides against a cluster of blazes near Spokane, Washington, scrambled on Wednesday to secure their gains as they anticipated a return of extremely hot, dry weather in the days ahead. Officials said crews had carved buffer lines around a trio of fires threatening the state's second-most populous city. The blazes have destroyed hundreds of buildings and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes since Saturday.



However, full containment, in which a wide corridor of ground has been scraped clean of combustible vegetation around a fire's perimeter, has yet to be achieved, authorities said.



"With primary containment lines now in place, crews are focused on strengthening those lines through aggressive mop-up and extinguishing pockets of heat near homes and other structures to reduce the risk of additional damage," the Spokane-area fire command said.



The Spokane fires were ranked as the No. 1 firefighting priority in the U.S. as a whole, including the drought-parched Pacific Northwest, where dozens of major wildfires have burned for weeks, fouling air quality across a wide region with smoke and soot.