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The deadly wildfires that swept through Oregon kept half a million people on evacuation alert Saturday when US President Donald Trump announced plans to visit California to get a closer look at the damage caused by the largest fires in the area. state history.
Thousands of homes have caught fire in recent days in Oregon, which has become the latest epicenter of a summer wildfire outbreak that swept through the western United States, collectively burning a landscape the size of New Jersey and killing at least 25 people.
In California, tens of thousands of firefighters were fighting 28 major wildfires across the state as of Saturday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Most were contained to some degree, except for one in Siskiyou County, which spiraled out of control.
The White House said Trump will meet with local and federal officials Monday in McClellan Park near Sacramento, the California state capital, after traveling to Nevada for a fundraiser and a couple of rallies for his campaign. re-election. He has been highly critical of California in the past for allowing conditions that he claims allow wildfires.
His Democratic opponent Joe Biden said in a statement Saturday that the wildfires demonstrated that “there is no greater challenge for our future than facing and defeating the looming climate crisis.”
Damaged homes are seen in a mobile home park that was destroyed by a wildfire in Ashland, Oregon. Photograph: David Ryder / Getty Images
The firestorms, some of the largest on record in California and Oregon, were fueled by strong winds that howled across the region for days amid record heat. Scientists say that global warming has also contributed to extremes in the wet and dry seasons, causing vegetation to flourish and then dry out, leaving more abundant fuel for wildfires.
Oregon state officials warned of possible “mass death incidents” as they searched the burned ruins for dozens of people who had been reported missing.
The Pacific Northwest as a whole has seen the brunt of an arson attack that began around Labor Day, the first Monday in September, darkening the sky with smoke and ash that has plagued Northern California, Oregon and Washington with some of the worst air in the world. quality levels.
‘Perfect storm’
“This is a damn weather emergency. This is real and it is happening. This is the perfect storm, ”California Governor Gavin Newsom told reporters Friday from a charred hillside near Oroville, California.
More than 4,000 homes and other structures have been cremated in California alone in the past three weeks.
In southern Oregon, a scene of charred residential subdivisions and trailer parks stretched for miles along Highway 99 south of Medford through the neighboring cities of Phoenix and Talent, one of the most devastated areas.
Molalla, a community about 25 miles south of downtown Portland, was left deserted after its more than 9,000 residents were told to evacuate, with only 30 refusing to leave, the city’s fire department said.
The lumber city was on the front line of a vast evacuation zone that stretched north as far north as 5 km from downtown Portland. The suburban Clackamas county sheriff established a 10 pm curfew to deter “a possible increase in criminal activity.”
In Portland, the Multnomah County Sheriff rebuked residents who had taken it upon themselves to set up checkpoints and stop cars after conspiracy theories spread that left-wing activists opposing Trump were starting some of the fires. , which local authorities say is unfounded.
Brown told a news conference that more than 500,000 people were under one of three evacuation alert levels, advising them to pack and be vigilant, to be ready to flee at any time, or to leave immediately. About 40,000 of them had already been ordered to leave.
Break in the weather
After four days of treacherously hot and windy weather, a ray of hope came in the form of calmer winds blowing from the ocean, bringing cooler and wetter conditions that helped firefighters advance against the flames that had largely burned. uncontrolled early in the week.
The total death toll from the western fires that started in August rose to 25 after seven people were reported to have died in the mountains north of Sacramento, California, and the fifth Oregon death was reported in Marion County, in outside of Salem, the state capital.
Paradise, a city ravaged by California’s deadliest wildfire in 2018, posted the world’s worst air quality index reading at 592, according to PurpleAir’s monitoring site, as two of the state’s largest fires burned. on Both Sides. – Reuters
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