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PORTLAND: Search and rescue teams with dogs combed through neighborhoods left in ruins blackened by massive wildfires burning in three states on Saturday (Sept. 12), and US President Donald Trump said he would travel to California to see the devastation firsthand.
The flames have destroyed thousands of homes and half a dozen small towns in the latest outbreak of wildfires that swept through the western United States this summer, scorched a landscape the size of New Jersey and killed at least 26 people since early August.
But after four days of brutally hot and windy weather, the weekend brought calmer winds that blew inland from the Pacific Ocean, and cooler, wetter conditions that helped crews advance against the flames that had burned without control at the beginning of the week.
At least six people died this week in Oregon, according to the state’s wildfire tracking website. Gov. Kate Brown has said dozens of people were still missing in three counties.
Bryan Alvarez holds up a sign for oncoming traffic as utility workers repair power lines after the Obenchain fire in Eagle Point, Oregon, USA, September 11, 2020. Photo taken on September 11, 2020 2020. REUTERS / Adrees Latif
In California, tens of thousands of firefighters were fighting 28 major wildfires as of Saturday afternoon, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Improving weather conditions had helped them gain some containment over most of the flames.
The White House said Trump, a Republican, will meet with California officials on Monday. The president has said that Western governors are partly to blame for the intense fire seasons in recent years, accusing them of poor forest management.
Trump has made few comments about the fires in recent weeks, but at a campaign event in Nevada on Saturday he acknowledged the extent of the disaster.
“They never had anything like this,” Trump said. “Please remember the words, very simple, forest management.”
READ: As wildfires rage, American voters remain divided on climate
His Democratic opponent in the November presidential election, Joe Biden, linked the conflagrations to climate change on Saturday, echoing comments made a day earlier by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
THICK SMOKE BLANKETS THREE STATES
“The debate on climate change is over. Just come to the state of California. See it with your own eyes,” Newsom said in a briefing broadcast live from a charred hillside near Oroville, California.
Since Labor Day, the Pacific Northwest has suffered a series of fierce wildfires that have darkened the sky with thick smoke and ash, creating some of the worst air quality levels in the world and driving residents inland.
READ: Smog blankets the west coast of the US as deadly wildfires rage
The small mountainous town of Paradise, California, nearly destroyed in 2018 by the deadliest wildfire in state history, posted the world’s worst air quality index reading at 592, according to monitoring site PurpleAir, as two of the state’s largest fires burned on both sides. her.
More than 4,000 homes and other structures have been cremated in California alone in the past three weeks.
Vehicles lie damaged after the Obenchain fire in Eagle Point, Oregon, USA, September 11, 2020. REUTERS / Adrees Latif
In southern Oregon, an apocalyptic scene of charred residential subdivisions and trailer parks stretched for miles along Highway 99 south of Medford through the neighboring communities of Phoenix and Talent.
Oregon has suffered four more deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll in the state this week alone to 19.
Among them was a 13-year-old boy found in a car with his dog on his lap. The road was so hot that it had melted the tires while trying to flee.
Emergency Officer Andrew Phelps warned that Oregon is “preparing for a mass fatality incident based on what we know and how many structures have been lost.”
Meanwhile, Molalla, a logging community 25 miles south of downtown Portland, was a ghost town covered in ash after its more than 9,000 residents were told to evacuate, and only 30 refused to leave, the said. city fire department.
Molalla was on the front line of an evacuation zone that stretched north to a 3-mile radius from downtown Portland. The suburban Clackamas County sheriff established a curfew at 10 pm (0500 Saturday GMT) to deter “a possible increase in criminal activity.”
READ: Fleeing harder from California wildfires during the COVID-19 pandemic
Joy, a 56-year-old woman who takes refuge on the outskirts of Portland and refused to give her last name, told AFP that she and her daughter don’t know if their home in Aims, a short drive east, still is standing.
“We saw a bird that was flying and suddenly it fell from the sky … if it’s killing God’s creatures, I don’t want to die too. So we left,” he told AFP.
Residents receive donation supplies to help people displaced by wildfires in Oregon City, Oregon, USA, September 11, 2020. REUTERS / Carlos Barria
The Multnomah County Sheriff in Portland chided residents who had set up their own checkpoints to stop cars after conspiracy theories spread on social media that members of Black Lives Matter or Antifa were lighting fires. Local officials have called those claims unfounded.
“We are removing false claims that certain groups started the wildfires in Oregon,” a Facebook spokesperson said Saturday. “This is based on confirmation from law enforcement that these rumors are forcing local fire and police agencies to divert resources to fight the fires and protect the public.”
