This news is relating with Shinba Cafe Original Expression site.
We take about this matter seriously to think for most states in U.S.A. may have same issue for the drought.I hope U.S.A. do concern how hold natural under ground waters , and if do concern waters more than concern oil and natural gas, the important basic primitive life of U.S.A may hold.
If we have waters and nature, trees , woods around us, even we do not have oil and gas, we can cook , and survive at least.
We lost Nature, trees of forests around us for development to create cities, towns, residences.
Many had business oriented mind only and left behind the gratitude to Nature as Spirit of Non name God.
We lost our balance made the earth balance lost.
I as a child like being believes, when Earth lose oils, lose also waters. This is the mysterious Nature automatic balance creation.
A human free will had too much playing game as business minded , politically control other countries for relation of capitals , power games included a mental war and lost praise Nature even go to church for every Sunday.
At Sunday, why we do not praise Sun? A Queen of natures spirits, yes She is. The Mother Sun God.
We can thank to Her in a morning until 10 AM at our home, at garden, at beach, anywhere we are at.
When I looked back my life of the half century almost, I seen what
most of us have praised to same human beings , paid attention to Hollywood stars , singers, grate painters, artists, whom brings in money , business and just for fun, symbolic figure, love model or as feeling of each of us have personally, then pay attention to them more than concern for Nature and Mother Earth. I think...
I respect Hollywood for some my truth of my micro universal views, I love artists whom came to Earth and gift a love , passion which I feel good. I`m not attacking to them.
We must have cars which needs just Sun energy , we do not need oils anymore. I believe the time came to take to stop dig up the Mother Earth, invent the new energy for our life and thank to Nature, Earth and Sun.
The sun spirit works with the earth spirit. Spirits are magnetism. We need Nature`s magnetism to be in peace by our gratitude to them. You believe or not, this is the Universal truth.
You call me " Crazy" ? Let see what happen in our future.
If we have natural electric energies from Sun, from water streams and from winds or by some grate God gift new technology may come up soon, I personally will be very happy.
About Möbius strip as the ring of a live or death for me is , by wikipedia, come up after photos.
By-Kukuri Boy as Si-Fi mind and Kukure Tentasu
Wildfires devastate the West
A lightning-sparked wildfire roared unchecked on Aug. 19 through tinder-dry grass, brush and timber in north-central California, where an estimated 3,000 people were forced from their homes in several small, rural communities, authorities said.
Smoke can be seen as crews continue to battle the Taylor Bridge Fire near Cle Elum, Washington, August 16, 2012. One of the more destructive of the fires flared into its fourth day near the town where authorities reported on Thursday that 70-plus homes and more than 200 barns and other structures were demolished earlier this week. REUTERS/Kevin P. Casey
Lizzie Morris, 4, waits for her grandmother, Lorie Winmill, to load their belongings into a vehicle as they prepare to evacuate from their home in Featherville, Idaho on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012. They were among residents warned that they will likely have to evacuate their homes because of a nearby wildfire that has burned 100 square miles. (AP Photo/Jessie L. Bonner)
A Suomi NPP satellite pass captured the smoke plumes emanating from fires across the Western U.S. in this NOAA handout image dated August 14, 2012. Wildfires roared out of control across the sun-scorched U.S. West on Wednesday and threatened to roll into two small towns in Idaho as firefighters managed to partially dampen a monster blaze that has destroyed 60 homes in Washington state. REUTERS/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Handout
Neighbors use handtools to try to hold back flames from nearby houses Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, on Bettas Road near Cle Elum, Wash. The fast-moving wildfire has burned 60 homes across nearly 40 square miles of central Washington grassland, timber and sagebrush. No injuries have been reported but more than 400 people have been forced to flee. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Men watch as fire roars across ranch land Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, on Bettas Road near Cle Elum, Wash. The fast-moving wildfire has burned 60 homes across nearly 40 square miles of central Washington grassland, timber and sagebrush. No injuries have been reported but more than 400 people have been forced to flee. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Look at the ring of fire at the field very front of the photo...
A ring of life or death. A end of 2012 is coming.
Can we who on Earth, back to respect, love, concern Nature ,
can we give our gratitude to Earth, Sun, Water ?
and can we think or feel about
A ring of.........
Men watch as fire roars across ranch land Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, on Bettas Road near Cle Elum, Wash. The fast-moving wildfire has burned 60 homes across nearly 40 square miles of central Washington grassland, timber and sagebrush. No injuries have been reported but more than 400 people have been forced to flee. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Look at the ring of fire at the field very front of the photo...
A ring of life or death. A end of 2012 is coming.
Can we who on Earth, back to respect, love, concern Nature ,
can we give our gratitude to Earth, Sun, Water ?
and can we think or feel about
A ring of.........
Möbius strip
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Möbius strip or Möbius band (UK /ˈmɜrbiəs/ orUS /ˈmoʊbiəs/; German: [ˈmøːbi̯ʊs]), also Mobius or Moebius, is asurface with only one side and only one boundary component. The Möbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It can be realized as a ruled surface. It was discovered independently by the German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858.[1][2][3]
A model can easily be created by taking a paper strip and giving it a half-twist, and then joining the ends of the strip together to form a loop. In Euclidean space there are two types of Möbius strips depending on the direction of the half-twist: clockwise and counterclockwise. That is to say, it is a chiral object with "handedness" (right-handed or left-handed).
It is straightforward to find algebraic equations the solutions of which have the topology of a Möbius strip, but in general these equations do not describe the same geometric shape that one gets from the twisted paper model described above. In particular, the twisted paper model is a developable surface (it has zero Gaussian curvature). A system of differential-algebraic equations that describes models of this type was published in 2007 together with its numerical solution.[4]
Contents[hide] |
[edit]Properties
The Möbius strip has several curious properties. A line drawn starting from the seam down the middle will meet back at the seam but at the "other side". If continued the line will meet the starting point and will be double the length of the original strip. This single continuous curve demonstrates that the Möbius strip has only oneboundary.
Cutting a Möbius strip along the center line with a pair of scissors yields one long strip with two full twists in it, rather than two separate strips; the result is not a Möbius strip. This happens because the original strip only has one edge that is twice as long as the original strip. Cutting creates a second independent edge, half of which was on each side of the scissors. Cutting this new, longer, strip down the middle creates two strips wound around each other, each with two full twists.
If the strip is cut along about a third of the way in from the edge, it creates two strips: One is a thinner Möbius strip — it is the center third of the original strip, comprising 1/3 of the width and the same length as the original strip. The other is a longer but thin strip with two full twists in it — this is a neighborhood of the edge of the original strip, and it comprises 1/3 of the width and twice the length of the original strip.
Other analogous strips can be obtained by similarly joining strips with two or more half-twists in them instead of one. For example, a strip with three half-twists, when divided lengthwise, becomes a strip tied in a trefoil knot. (If this knot is unravelled, the strip is made with eight half-twists in addition to an overhand knot.) A strip with N half-twists, when bisected, becomes a strip with N + 1 full twists. Giving it extra twists and reconnecting the ends produces figures called paradromic rings.
A strip with an odd-number of half-twists, such as the Möbius strip, will have only one surface and one boundary. A strip twisted an even number of times will have two surfaces and two boundaries.
If a strip with an odd number of half-twists is cut in half along its length, it will result in a longer strip, with the same number of loops as there are half-twists in the original. Alternatively, if a strip with an even number of half-twists is cut in half along its length, it will result in two linked strips, each with the same number of twists as the original.
[edit]Geometry and topology
where 0 ≤ u < 2π and −1 ≤ v ≤ 1. This creates a Möbius strip of width 1 whose center circle has radius 1, lies in the xy plane and is centered at(0, 0, 0). The parameter u runs around the strip while v moves from one edge to the other.
In cylindrical polar coordinates (r, θ, z), an unbounded version of the Möbius strip can be represented by the equation:
Topologically, the Möbius strip can be defined as the square[0,1] × [0,1] with its top and bottom sides identified by the relation(x, 0) ~ (1 − x, 1) for 0 ≤ x ≤ 1, as in the diagram on the right.
A less used presentation of the Möbius strip is as the orbifold quotient of a torus.[5] A torus can be constructed as the square [0,1] × [0,1]with the edges identified as (0,y) ~ (1,y) (glue left to right) and(x,0) ~ (x,1) (glue bottom to top). If one then also identified(x,y) ~ (y,x), then one obtains the Möbius strip. The diagonal of the square (the points (x,x) where both coordinates agree) becomes the boundary of the Möbius strip, and carries an orbifold structure, which geometrically corresponds to "reflection" – geodesics (straight lines) in the Möbius strip reflect off the edge back into the strip. Notationally, this is written as T2/S2 – the 2-torus quotiented by the group action of the symmetric group on two letters (switching coordinates), and it can be thought of as the configuration space of two unordered points on the circle, possibly the same (the edge corresponds to the points being the same), with the torus corresponding to two ordered points on the circle.
The Möbius strip is a two-dimensional compact manifold (i.e. asurface) with boundary. It is a standard example of a surface which is not orientable. The Möbius strip is also a standard example used to illustrate the mathematical concept of a fiber bundle. Specifically, it is a nontrivial bundle over the circle S1 with a fiber the unit interval, I = [0,1]. Looking only at the edge of the Möbius strip gives a nontrivial two point (or Z2) bundle over S1.
A simple construction of the Möbius strip which can be used to portray it in computer graphics or modeling packages is as follows :
- Take a rectangular strip. Rotate it around a fixed point not in its plane. At every step also rotate the strip along a line in its plane (the line which divides the strip in two) and perpendicular to the main orbital radius. The surface generated on one complete revolution is the Möbius strip.
- Take a Möbius strip and cut it along the middle of the strip. This will form a new strip, which is a rectangle joined by rotating one end a whole turn. By cutting it down the middle again, this forms two interlocking whole-turn strips.
[edit]Open Möbius band
The open Möbius band is formed by deleting the boundary of the standard Möbius band. It is constructed from the set S = { (x,y) ∈ R2 : 0 ≤ x ≤ 1 and 0 < y < 1} by identifying (glueing) the points (0,y) and (1,1−y) for all0 < y < 1.
[edit]Occurrence and use in mathematics
To see why, notice that each line in the plane has an equation ax + by + c = 0 for fixed constants a, b and c. We can identify the equation ax + by + c = 0 with the point (a,b,c). However, the line given by ax + by + c = 0 is also given by λ(ax + by + c) = (λa)x + (λb)y + (λc) = 0 for all λ ≠ 0.
These equations, which give the same line, are identified with the points (λa,λb,λc). Thus, the space of lines in the plane is a (proper) subset of the real projective plane; where the equation ax + by + c = 0 corresponds to the point (a:b:c) in homogeneous coordinates. It is only a subset because some equations of the formax + by + c = 0 do not give lines. We need to disallow a = b = 0 to be sure that the equation ax + by + c = 0 does indeed give a line. The space of unoriented lines in the plane is given by deleting the point (0:0:c) = (0:0:1) from the real projective plane. This space is exactly the open Möbius band.
[edit]Möbius band with flat edge
The edge of a Möbius strip is topologically equivalent to the circle. Under the usual embeddings of the strip in Euclidean space, as above, this edge is not an ordinary (flat) circle. It is possible to embed a Möbius strip in three dimensions so that the edge is a circle. One way to think of this is to begin with a minimal Klein bottle immersed in the 3-sphere and take half of it, which is an embedded Möbius band in 4-space; this figure M has been called the "Sudanese Möbius Band". (The name comes from a combination of the names of two topologists, Sue Goodman and Daniel Asimov). Applying stereographic projection to M puts it in 3-dimensional space, as can be seen here as well as in the pictures below. (Some have incorrectly labeled the stereographic image in 3-space "Sudanese", but this is rather an image of the actual Sudanese one, which has a high degree of symmetry as a Riemannian surface: its isometry group contains SO(2). A well-known parametrization of it follows.)
To see this, first consider such an embedding into the 3-sphere S3 regarded as a subset of R4. A parametrization for this embedding is given by {(z1(η,φ), z2(η,φ))}, where
Here we have used complex notation and regarded R4 as C2. The parameter η runs from 0 to π and φ runs from 0 to 2π. Since | z1 |2 + | z2 |2 = 1 the embedded surface lies entirely on S3. The boundary of the strip is given by | z2 | = 1 (corresponding to η = 0, π), which is clearly a circle on the 3-sphere.
To obtain an embedding of the Möbius strip in R3 one maps S3 to R3 via a stereographic projection. The projection point can be any point on S3 which does not lie on the embedded Möbius strip (this rules out all the usual projection points). Stereographic projections map circles to circles and will preserve the circular boundary of the strip. The result is a smooth embedding of the Möbius strip into R3 with a circular edge and no self-intersections.
[edit]Related objects
A closely related 'strange' geometrical object is the Klein bottle. A Klein bottle can be produced by gluing two Möbius strips together along their edges; this cannot be done in ordinary three-dimensional Euclidean spacewithout creating self-intersections.[7]
Another closely related manifold is the real projective plane. If a circular disk is cut out of the real projective plane, what is left is a Möbius strip.[8] Going in the other direction, if one glues a disk to a Möbius strip by identifying their boundaries, the result is the projective plane. In order to visualize this, it is helpful to deform the Möbius strip so that its boundary is an ordinary circle (see above). The real projective plane, like the Klein bottle, cannot be embedded in three-dimensions without self-intersections.
In 1968, Gonzalo Vélez Jahn (UCV, Caracas, Venezuela) discovered three dimensional bodies with Möbian characteristics, later described by Martin Gardner as prismatic rings that became 'toroidal polyhedrons'.[9]
[edit]Applications
There have been several technical applications for the Möbius strip. Giant Möbius strips have been used as conveyor belts that last longer because the entire surface area of the belt gets the same amount of wear, and as continuous-loop recording tapes (to double the playing time). Möbius strips are common in the manufacture of fabric computer printer and typewriter ribbons, as they allow the ribbon to be twice as wide as the print head while using both halves evenly.
A Möbius resistor is an electronic circuit element that cancels its own inductive reactance. Nikola Tesla patented similar technology in 1894:[10]"Coil for Electro Magnets" was intended for use with his system of global transmission of electricity without wires.
The Möbius strip is the configuration space of two unordered points on a circle. Consequently, in music theory, the space of all two note chords, known as dyads, takes the shape of a Möbius strip; this and generalizations to more points is a significant application of orbifolds to music theory.[11][12]
- as a compact resonator with the resonance frequency which is half that of identically constructed linear coils[13]
- as an inductionless resistor[14]
- as superconductors with high transition temperature[15]
- as molecular knots with special characteristics (Knotane [2], Chirality)
- as molecular engines[16]
- as graphene volume (nano-graphite) with new electronic characteristics, like helical magnetism[17]
- in a special type of aromaticity: Möbius aromaticity
- charged particles that have been caught in the magnetic field of the earth can move on a Möbius band[18]
- the cyclotide (cyclic protein) Kalata B1, active substance of the plant Oldenlandia affinis, contains Möbius topology for the peptide backbone.
[edit]See also
[edit]References
- ^ Clifford A. Pickover (March 2005). The Möbius Strip : Dr. August Möbius's Marvelous Band in Mathematics, Games, Literature, Art, Technology, and Cosmology. Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 1-56025-826-8.
- ^ Rainer Herges (2005). Möbius, Escher, Bach – Das unendliche Band in Kunst und Wissenschaft . In: Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau 6/58/2005. pp. 301–310. ISSN 0028-1050.
- ^ Chris Rodley (ed.) (1997). Lynch on Lynch. London, Boston. pp. 231.
- ^ Starostin E.L., van der Heijden G.H.M. (2007). "The shape of a Möbius strip". Nature Materials 6 (8): 563–7.doi:10.1038/nmat1929. PMID 17632519.
- ^ Tony Phillips, Tony Phillips' Take on Math in the Media, American Mathematical Society, October 2006
- ^ Parker, Phillip (1993). "Spaces of Geodesics". Aportaciones Matemáticas. Notas de Investigación (UASLP): 67 − 79.
- ^ Spivak, Michael (1979). A Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry, Volume I (2nd ed.). Wilmington, Delaware: Publish or Perish. pp. 591.
- ^ Hilbert, David; S. Cohn-Vossen (1999). Geometry and the Imagination (2nd ed.). Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society. pp. 316. ISBN 978-0-8218-1998-2.
- ^ Gardner, Martin (1978). Mathematical Games. Providence, Rhode Island: Scientific American. pp. 12-13.
- ^ U.S. Patent 512,340
- ^ Clara Moskowitz, Music Reduced to Beautiful Math, LiveScience
- ^ Dmitri Tymoczko (7 July 2006). "The Geometry of Musical Chords". Science 313 (5783): 72–4.doi:10.1126/science.1126287. PMID 16825563.
- ^ IEEE of Trans. Microwave Theory and Tech., volume. 48, No. 12, pp. 2465–2471, Dec. 2000
- ^ U.S. Patent 3,267,406
- ^ Enriquez, Raul Perez (2002). "A Structural parameter for High Tc Superconductivity from an Octahedral Moebius Strip in RBaCuO: 123 type of perovskite". Rev Mex Fis 48 (supplement 1): 262. arXiv:cond-mat/0308019.
- ^ Angew Chem Int OD English one 2005 February 25; 44 (10): 1456–77.
- ^ Yamashiro, Atsushi; Shimoi, Yukihiro; Harigaya, Kikuo; Wakabayashi, Katsunori (2004). "Novel Electronic States in Graphene Ribbons -Competing Spin and Charge Orders-". Physica E 22 (1–3): 688–691. arXiv:cond-mat/0309636. doi:10.1016/j.physe.2003.12.100.
- ^ IEEE Transactions on plasma Science, volume. 30, No. 1, February 2002
[edit]External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Moebius surfaces |
- Möbius Strip Video
- A virtual walk in the solar wind
- Animation of a rotating Sudanese Möbius band
- Louis Buckley (2007-07-15). "Möbius strip unravelled". Nature. doi:10.1038/news070709-16. Retrieved 2006-07-16.
- h2g2 - The Amazing Möbius Strip
- Johann Benedict Listing
- Knitted version
- Möbius Strip Music Box
- Möbius strip at cut-the-knot
- Science News 7/28/07: A Twist on the Möbius Band: Researchers work out the shape of a paper strip
- The Möbius Gear — A functional planetary gear model in which one gear is a Möbius strip
- Visualization of J. S. Bach's crab canon on a Möbius strip
- The protein with a topological twist
- Tridimensional and rotational möbius strip
- Weisstein, Eric W., "Möbius Strip" from MathWorld.
- Huckel spectra of Mobius pi systems
- Beyond the Mobius Strip
Men watch as fire roars across ranch land Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, on Bettas Road near Cle Elum, Wash. The fast-moving wildfire has burned 60 homes across nearly 40 square miles of central Washington grassland, timber and sagebrush. No injuries have been reported but more than 400 people have been forced to flee. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
A wooden structure sits on the side of the road near Pine and Featherville, Idaho as flames from the Trinity Ridge Fire in the Boise National Forest engulf trees in this August 17, 2012 handout photograph made available to Reuters August 19, 2012. REUTERS/Kari Greer/US Forest Service/Handout- Flames from the Trinity Ridge Fire in the Boise National Forest engulf trees near Pine and Featherville, Idaho in this August 17, 2012 photograph made available to Reuters August 19, 2012. REUTERS/Kari Greer/US Forest Service/Handout
- Firefighters work the line at the Trinity Ridge Fire in the Boise National Forest near Pine and Featherville, Idaho in this August 17, 2012 handout photograph made available to Reuters August 19, 2012. REUTERS/Kari Greer/US Forest Service/Handout
- In this photo taken Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, flames surround a house on a hillside above Bettas Road near Cle Elum, Wash. A spokesman for the Washington state Department of Natural Resources said the house survived the fire because of the defensible space around the structure with the placement of the driveway and the lack of trees and brush up against the house, preventing flames from reaching it. Firefighters are still working to control the ...more
- U.S. Forest Service firefighters work on the Springs Fire in Boise National Forest near Banks-Garden Valley, Idaho in this August 13, 2012 photograph made available to Reuters on August 17, 2012. The Idaho blaze, sparked by a utility vehicle that caught fire, has charred nearly 70,000 acres of sagebrush and woodlands east of Boise over the past six days, burning a rental cabin and six non-residential structures, authorities said. REUTERS/Kari ...more
- A U.S. Forest Service firefighter works on the Springs Fire in Boise National Forest near Banks-Garden Valley, Idaho in this August 13, 2012 photograph made available to Reuters on August 17, 2012. The Idaho blaze, sparked by a utility vehicle that caught fire, has charred nearly 70,000 acres of sagebrush and woodlands east of Boise over the past six days, burning a rental cabin and six non-residential structures, authorities said. REUTERS/Kari ...more
- A U.S. Forest Service firefighter works on the Springs Fire in Boise National Forest near Banks-Garden Valley, Idaho in this August 13, 2012 photograph made available for Reuters on August 17, 2012. The Idaho blaze, sparked by a utility vehicle that caught fire, has charred nearly 70,000 acres of sagebrush and woodlands east of Boise over the past six days, burning a rental cabin and six non-residential structures, authorities said. REUTERS/Kari...more
- A wildfire at the Springs Fire burns in Boise National Forest near Banks-Garden Valley, Idaho in this August 13, 2012 photograph made available to Reuters on August 17, 2012. The Idaho blaze, sparked by a utility vehicle that caught fire, has charred nearly 70,000 acres of sagebrush and woodlands east of Boise over the past six days, burning a rental cabin and six non-residential structures, authorities said. REUTERS/Kari Greer/US Forest ...more
- A firefighting helicopter drops water over the Springs Fire in Boise National Forest near Banks-Garden Valley, Idaho in this August 13, 2012 photograph made available to Reuters on August 17, 2012. The Idaho blaze, sparked by a utility vehicle that caught fire, has charred nearly 70,000 acres of sagebrush and woodlands east of Boise over the past six days, burning a rental cabin and six non-residential structures, authorities said. REUTERS/Kari ...more
- U.S. Forest Service firefighters work on the Springs Fire in Boise National Forest near Banks-Garden Valley, Idaho in this August 13, 2012 photograph made available to Reuters on August 17, 2012. The Idaho blaze, sparked by a utility vehicle that caught fire, has charred nearly 70,000 acres of sagebrush and woodlands east of Boise over the past six days, burning a rental cabin and six non-residential structures, authorities said. REUTERS/Kari ...more
- Tracy Summers, of the Toledo Fire Department, watches a water drop as crews continue to battle the Taylor Bridge Fire near Cle Elum, Washington, August 16, 2012. One of the more destructive of the fires flared into its fourth day near the town where authorities reported on Thursday that 70-plus homes and more than 200 barns and other structures were demolished earlier this week. REUTERS/Kevin P. Casey
- A water dropping helicopter leaves the heli-base while battling the Trinity Fire in Pine, Idaho August 16, 2012. The Trinity Ridge Fire a few hundred miles to the southeast in Idaho posed a greater threat to property on Thursday, and nearly 1,000 firefighters were amassed for a last-ditch effort to keep flames at bay. REUTERS/Brian Losness
- Marcus Johns with the Department of Natural Resources, watches as the Taylor Bridge Fire burns on the south side of Highway 970 near Swauk Prairie Road on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012 near Cle Elum, Wash. The Taylor Bridge Fire has forced hundreds to evacuate and has burned dozens of homes. (AP Photo/seattlepi.com, Joshua Trujillo)
- A fire crew continues to battle the Taylor Bridge Fire near Cle Elum, Washington, August 16, 2012. One of the more destructive of the fires flared into its fourth day near the town where authorities reported on Thursday that 70-plus homes and more than 200 barns and other structures were demolished earlier this week. REUTERS/Kevin P. Casey
- Smoke can be seen as crews continue to battle the Taylor Bridge Fire near Cle Elum, Washington, August 16, 2012. One of the more destructive of the fires flared into its fourth day near the town where authorities reported on Thursday that 70-plus homes and more than 200 barns and other structures were demolished earlier this week. REUTERS/Kevin P. Casey
- Smoke from the Trinity Ridge Fire rises over the mountains outside Pine, Idaho August 15 2012. Wildfires roared out of control across the sun-scorched U.S. West on Wednesday and threatened to engulf two small towns in Idaho as firefighters managed to partially dampen a monster blaze that has destroyed more than 60 homes in Washington state. REUTERS/Brian Losness
- Smoke can be seen as crews continue to battle the Taylor Bridge Fire near Cle Elum, Washington, August 16, 2012. One of the more destructive of the fires flared into its fourth day near the town where authorities reported on Thursday that 70-plus homes and more than 200 barns and other structures were demolished earlier this week. REUTERS/Kevin P. Casey
- Orange fire retardant is dumped from a firefighting tanker plane onto trees near homes threatened by the Taylor Bridge Fire outside of Cle Elum, Washington, August, 15, 2012. Wildfires roared out of control across the sun-scorched U.S. West on Wednesday and threatened to engulf two small towns in Idaho as firefighters managed to partially dampen a monster blaze that has destroyed more than 60 homes in Washington state. REUTERS/Robert Sorbo
- Lizzie Morris, 4, waits for her grandmother, Lorie Winmill, to load their belongings into a vehicle as they prepare to evacuate from their home in Featherville, Idaho on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012. They were among residents warned that they will likely have to evacuate their homes because of a nearby wildfire that has burned 100 square miles. (AP Photo/Jessie L. Bonner)
- Smoke from the Trinity Ridge fire rises into the sky by Anderson Ranch reservoir in Pine, Idaho, August 15, 2012. REUTERS/Brian Losness
- A Suomi NPP satellite pass captured the smoke plumes emanating from fires across the Western U.S. in this NOAA handout image dated August 14, 2012. Wildfires roared out of control across the sun-scorched U.S. West on Wednesday and threatened to roll into two small towns in Idaho as firefighters managed to partially dampen a monster blaze that has destroyed 60 homes in Washington state. REUTERS/National Oceanic and Atmospheric ...more
- A firefighting tanker plane drops fire retardant on homes threatened by the Taylor Creek Fire outside Cle Elum, Washington, August 15, 2012. Wildfires roared out of control across the sun-scorched U.S. West on Wednesday and threatened to roll into two small towns in Idaho as firefighters managed to partially dampen a monster blaze that has destroyed 60 homes in Washington state. REUTERS/Robert Sorbo
- Denise Freeman rakes up pine needles to help make her log home less susceptible to a nearby wildfire in Featherville, Idaho on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2012. Freeman was among residents warned that they will likely have to evacuate their homes because of the nearby Trinity Ridge Fire. (AP Photo/Jessie L. Bonner)
- Flames surround a house Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, on a hillside above Bettas Road near Cle Elum, Wash. Wildland firefighters on-site advised that the house survived the fire. The fast-moving wildfire has burned 60 homes across nearly 40 square miles of central Washington grassland, timber and sagebrush. No injuries have been reported but more than 400 people have been forced to flee. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
- Neighbors use handtools to try to hold back flames from nearby houses Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, on Bettas Road near Cle Elum, Wash. The fast-moving wildfire has burned 60 homes across nearly 40 square miles of central Washington grassland, timber and sagebrush. No injuries have been reported but more than 400 people have been forced to flee. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)