More help to combat US wildfires

President Clinton has ordered an extra two-thousand government workers to assist in efforts to extinguish forest fires affecting the western United States.

Twenty-five-thousand people, including firefighters from as far away as Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand, have already been drafted in to help put out the blazes -- the worst to hit the region in fifty years.

Forecasters say a combination of dry weather and strong winds in the coming days could make the situation much worse.

Public access has already been prohibited in more than half the state of Montana.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service