Other fires ignited in Colorado and Utah, threatening homes, closing roads and stoking the zero-sum competition for finite resources -- firefighters and the airplanes and helicopters that dump chemicals and water.

Decisions about which areas will receive firefighting resources are revisited each morning, as team leaders assess how much ground the fires have gained, who or what is endangered, and how firefighters will transport tools, water and fuel for their chain saws.

It is like piecing together an ever-changing puzzle, "deciding where resources go, stay and will move in the next few hours," said Jessica Gardetto, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, the mother ship of wildfire management in the country.

Complicating the equation is the record heat -- oppressive where fires are not burning and particularly dangerous where they are. At least five people have died since Friday while hiking in Arizona, overcome by temperatures topping 110 that have been gripping much of the state. The crews fighting fires in remote forest here must travel much of the way on foot, lugging tools, water and backpacks weighing at least 40 pounds, full of gear and other necessities: foot powder, sunscreen, antacids. Once they arrive, they typically work for 16 hours straight. The toughest jobs -- felling trees and yanking brush and roots from the ground, removing all the vegetation that keeps a fire going -- are done at night.

The vehicles were paid for with funds from a bond issue passed in April 2014. From the $14 million in the bond issue, $5.35 million was allotted for the firefighting vehicles to help replace older apparatus, some of which were nearly 30 years old.

Six more vehicles will be delivered to the district this year: four Danko brush trucks in July, and two Rosenbauer rescue squad vehicles in October.

The purchases were funded with proceeds from a quarter cent sales tax that offsets ambulance service operations for Labette Health. The tax generates about $600,000 a year. Under the contract with the county, if the hospital ambulance service experiences a direct loss, the county agrees to reimburse the hospital 95 percent of its loss, or 100 percent of the revenue generated by the sales tax, whichever is less. Since 2013, the county has given $1,193,597 to the service to set aside for the purchases and outfitting of new ambulances. Three were ordered in 2015 from Braun Custom Ambulances, Van Wert, Ohio, and delivered this month, the last one on Wednesday. Two more ambulances will be ordered later this year.

Ambulance service Director Randy Grimmett accepted delivery of the ambulance late Wednesday morning from Brent Coburn of Jones Motor Co. of Spring City, Pennsylvania.

The three ambulances will replace three existing units with odometer miles reading 230,000 to 250,000.

The ambulance was not carrying any patients at the time of the 4 p.m. crash, Palos Heights police officer Joe Carlson said. The 20-year-old driver was not ticketed.

"The driver was pulling into the parking area when he hit the accelerator instead of the brake," Carlson said. "Fortunately there were no patrons or employees near the front of the store when the accident occurred."