U.S. wildfire managers facing increasingly strained resourceshave opened talks with Pentagon commanders and Canadian officialsabout possible reinforcements of personnel and aircraft to battledozens of blazes raging across the drought-parched AmericanWest.

Preliminary plans for military and international aid come as theU.S. Forest Service is feeling the pinch of federal budget cutsknown as sequestration even as demand for firefighters andequipment such as air tankers is exceeding supply, according to theNational Interagency Fire Center in Boise.

Elite teams of firefighters known as hotshots and smoke jumpers,whose job it is to mount the initial attack on blazes in remote,rugged terrain, are stretched too thin, said Stephen Gage,assistant operations director for fire and aviation management forthe Forest Service.

The agency's 100-plus hotshot crews are all either assigned tofires in the West or are taking required periods of rest andrecovery, leaving no spare teams to dispatch to any additionalfires where they might be needed, he said.

"We have just a limited number of those assets. We'd love togive everybody what they need when they ask for it," he said."Deciding which area gets those highly skilled crews and whichdoesn't is the hardest thing we do."

Fire managers are poised to decide in coming days whether to"pull the trigger" on a pending request to the U.S. military for aninitial deployment of 200 ground troops to supplement firefightingpersonnel, Gage said. It would take roughly a week to train andmobilize those troops, who would then be assigned to large fires inthe West.

Thousands of firefighters were laboring on Thursday to suppressdozens of blazes raging in several Western states, from a monsterfire menacing the area around the world-class ski resort in SunValley, Idaho, to a California blaze near Yosemite National Parkthat more than tripled in size overnight.

Meanwhile, weather forecasters have predicted heightenedwildfire risks for northern California, the Pacific Northwest andthe Northern Rockies posed by storm systems likely to bringlightning and strong winds.

FIRE INDEX RAISED

U.S. fire managers this week opened the way to potentiallyseeking military aid and gaining firefighting resources stemmingfrom agreements with Canada, Australia and New Zealand by raisingthe national wildfire alert index to the maximum level of 5 for thefirst time in five years.

Gage said he could not recall any previous instance in recentyears when the United States has requested large-scale Canadianassistance, such as fire crews and aircraft, in addition to theseveral air tankers already on loan from Canada.

"We've opened discussions with Canada about utilizing theirassets if they are available," he said.

Federal fire officials have already shifted stores of equipmentsuch as hand tools and supplies from Southern states like Kentuckyto the West amid all-out air and ground offensives against flamesthat have charred hundreds of thousands of acres (tens of thousandsof hectares) of parched sagebrush, grasslands and forests.

The 2013 fire season has already seen the most destructive firein Colorado history, the deadliest blaze on record inArizona andhas forced the evacuation of many thousands across the region.

Years of drought have played a key role in the ignition andspread of blazes that fire managers say stand out for theirintensity and speed, even as the overall acreage burned remainsbelow the 10-year average.