Tamarack Fire

Cooler weather on Tuesday, July 27, 2021, helped calm two gigantic wildfires in the U.S. West, but a tally of property losses mounted as authorities got better access to a tiny California community savaged by flames last weekend and to a remote area of southern Oregon where the nation's largest blaze is burning.

Oregon’s explosive summer of wildfire is threatening to escalate further, with thunderstorms and lightning set to spur more of the blazes that have torn through much of a parched, dangerously hot U.S. West this year.