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Lightning strikes cause 40 fires in Klamath River area By BILL KETTLER More than 450 firefighters were working in Northern California forests Sunday to extinguish about 40 lightning-caused fires in the Klamath River country. The fires were scattered across an area 30 to 40 miles long and 10 miles wide from Happy Camp to Seiad Valley. Fire information officer Dave Payne said some of the fires broke out in areas that were burned after the 1987 lightning storm that kindled dozens of fires in Southern Oregon and Northern California. The largest fire had burned 35 acres by late Sunday and all the fires together had burned about 120 acres. Payne said firefighters would not know until today when they expected to contain the fires. Several small fires that popped up in Jackson County after a Friday lightning storm were under control, said Nikki Gragg of the Oregon Department of Forestry. Crews had contained fires on Collings Mountain, near Applegate Lake, Needle Rock, near Lost Creek Lake, and Gardner Butte, near Lake Creek. Gragg said light rain that accompanied the local lightning helped prevent the fires from growing. Three air tankers flying out of the Medford airport on Sunday dropped 14 loads of fire retardant chemicals on the Klamath fires. Dispatcher Tammy Wodarczyk said four air tankers dropped 30 loads of retardant on Saturday. Prevailing winds blew smoke from the fires south into the Marble Mountains. By late Sunday Klamath National Forest officials had called in 23 20-person firefighting crews, along with 19 fire engines, seven helicopters, and the air tankers. Payne said fire bosses called in so many firefighters because the fires were burning in very dry country and on steep terrain with limited road access. Payne said virtually no rain had fallen on the area for at least two months. Smoke jumpers parachuted into some of the most remote fires and other crews rappelled down ropes from helicopters. Some firefighting crews had to walk cross-country to fires burning in the Siskiyou and Marble Mountain wilderness areas. "Access has been a real problem," said Payne. Firefighters set up a base camp on the grounds of the elementary school in Happy Camp. Payne said no structures were threatened. Many of the fires broke out along ridge tops as the lightning storm moved through the Klamath River country late Friday and early Saturday. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA