Washington state wildfire destroys 100 homes, hundreds evacuated

A wildfire raging unchecked for a sixth day east of Washington state's Cascade Mountains has destroyed about 100 homes, displaced hundreds of residents and left thousands without electricity, emergency officials said, according to Reuters.
A cluster of lightning-sparked blazes that merged days ago into a conflagration dubbed the Carlton Complex has scorched at least 336 square miles (870 sq km) of dry timber and grasslands in north-central Washington since Monday, officials said.
No serious injuries have been reported, said Mike Worden, manager of the emergency dispatch and communications center for the Okanogan County Sheriff's Office.
But authorities were seeking the whereabouts of a "handful" of people - fewer than 10 - who have not been heard from by family or friends in the hardest-hit area of the fire zone, the small Columbia River town of Pateros, Worden told Reuters.
He said authorities had yet to thoroughly canvass neighborhoods left in ruins by the blaze, about 120 miles (195 km) northeast of Seattle, but hoped those unaccounted for would turn up safe.