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LOS ANGELES (AP) – About half a million people in Oregon were evacuated as dozens of extreme wind-driven wildfires swept through states on the U.S. West Coast on Friday (September 11), destroying thousands. from homes and killing at least 16 people, state and local authorities said.
In southern Oregon, an apocalyptic scene of burned-out residential subdivisions and trailer parks stretched for miles along Highway 99 south of Medford through Phoenix and Talent, one of the worst-hit areas, according to a photographer. Reuters at the scene.
Flames leapt from wildfires burning through brush and woods to suburban firestorms as flames leapt from house to house.
An online video from the Tacoma, Washington, area showed fires that started in a residential area and burned houses, and locals running from house to house to warn neighbors.
“Everybody out, everybody out,” a man yelled as firefighters tried to put out the flames.
READ: Dozens of wildfires burn the west coast of the US, killing at least nine
Since Monday, 11 people have died from fires in California, while four died in Oregon and a 1-year-old boy died in Washington state, police said.
In Oregon alone, the number of people under evacuation orders rose to about 500,000, roughly an eighth of the state’s total population, as Portland’s suburbs were threatened when two of the state’s largest fires merged into one. said the state Office of Emergency Management.
Thousands more were displaced north and south in the neighboring states of Washington and California.
“We had four hours to pack our pets and some medications and things like that,” said retiree John Maylone of an evacuation center in Fresno, California, after he was forced to leave three of his 30 cats behind as he fled the huge stream. Fire while burning a few miles from his home.
Oregon suffered the brunt of nearly 100 major wildfires in western states, with about 3,000 firefighters fighting nearly three dozen fires and officials said twice as many people were needed.
Police have opened a criminal investigation into arson in the Oregon fire that destroyed much of Phoenix and talent and began in Ashland near the California border, Ashland Police Chief Tighe O’Meara said.
Dozens of homes were burned in the Bear Creek trailer park 15 km south of Medford, where families returned to find ash and burning cars, according to another Reuters photographer.
At least four Oregon police departments warned of “bogus” online messages that appeared to come from law enforcement and blamed left-wing anti-fascists and right-wing Proud Boy activists for starting the fires.
The Oregon flames ravaged multiple communities in the Cascade Range, as well as areas of coastal rainforest that do not normally experience wildfires. In eastern Washington state, a fire destroyed most of the small farming town of Malden.
Search and rescue teams entered devastated communities in the Santiam Valley in central Oregon to search for missing people after a 12-year-old boy was found dead with his dog in a burned-out car and his grandmother was also believed to have died. .
Firefighters said unusually hot and dry winds from the east created firestorms that spread embers from community to community and then house to house.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said about 900,000 acres (364,220 hectares) had been burned, dwarfing the state’s annual average of 500,000 acres (202,340 hectares) over the past decade.
“This will not be a one-time event,” Brown said at a news conference Thursday. “We are feeling the acute impacts of climate change”
More than 100 years of fire suppression by state and federal authorities have created a huge accumulation of dead trees and brush to fuel the fires that have burned naturally in the western forests for eons. In recent decades, Americans have built homes in those forests as second homes or because of rising prices in metropolitan areas such as San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.
Climate scientists say that global warming has contributed to greater extremes in the wet and dry seasons, causing vegetation to flourish and then dry out, leaving more volatile and abundant fuel for fires.
In California, the most populous state in the United States, wildfires have burned more than 3.1 million acres (1.25 million hectares) so far this year, setting a record for any year, with six of the 20 largest wildfires in state history occurring in 2020.
About a third of the evacuees were displaced in Butte County alone, north of Sacramento, where the North Complex wildfire has ravaged more than 247,000 acres (99,960 hectares) and destroyed more than 2,000 homes and structures.
The remains of 10 victims have been found in separate locations in that fire zone, according to a spokesman for the Butte County Sheriff’s Office.
Another person died in Siskiyou County in far north California, state fire authority CalFire reported without providing further details.
