FIRES OUT OF CONTROL

Two fires grew into the 30 to 40,000 acre class today as Forest Service crews fought through the night to hold the line on ten out of 24 fires raging throughout out the Yukon Territory.

Eight roads were closed to traffic in the Whitehorse area.

Fourteen of the fires were either in too remote an area or considered being of no threat to a community to warrant fighting.

Smoke was so thick from the major holocausts in the Klondike and Mayo areas that Forest Service officials could make only rough estimates of their size.

Four bull dozers were rushed to the 35,000 acre fire near Midway, half way between Whitehorse and Dawson City as that burn built into mammoth proportion.

Another fire at Lake Creek grew into huge proportions as additional fire fighters were sent to battle that blaze.

Don Merrill, chief of the forest service in the Yukon and veteran of many years of fighting fires here, said today that conditions were the worst he had ever seen in the Yukon.

"It is only June 21, and we have had 35 fires already, with 24 burning right now," said Merrill. "Last year was a bad fire year, yet we did not have near the amount in the entire month of June as we have had break out this last week end."

Principal cause of the fires, which have also broken out on a large scale in Alaska, was a widespread series of thunderstorms that were heavily charged with electricity. Resultant lightning bolts set fires over an area 1,500 miles across.

Fires are now burning along the banks of Hunker, All Gold, and Bonanza Creeks immediately south of Dawson City; between the north and south forks of Henderson Creek at the mouth of Stewart River; Lake Creek west of Stewart Crossing; near Barlow on the Dawson-Mayo road near Midway on the Dawson-Whitehorse Road; at Ethel Lake and Dragon Lake on the Canol Road.

A fire near Watson Lake was reported to have been extinguished.

Another fire burst out 35 miles east of Mayo, springing from a 600 acre to 20,000 acre blaze in 12 hours, Forest Service officials reported. This fire and six more northeast of Snag, are not being fought.