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NEW YORK (Dagbladet): The scenes of the wildfires that are taking place in the western United States are almost apocalyptic. At least 16 people have lost their lives in Washington, Oregon and California in the last 24 hours.
– Baby sex party blamed for a big fire
On Thursday night local time, 500,000 people in Oregon were evacuated from their homes, reports the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, according to AP.
That’s more than 10 percent of the 4.2 million people in the state.
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– Never seen
According to Governor Kate Brown, land of approximately 3,700 square miles in Oregon alone has been burned in the past three days. It is more than the entire state of Rhode Island. The number of fatalities has not yet been confirmed.
Declare disaster
“We have never seen this many wildfires across the state,” Brown told a news conference.
Along much of the west coast, hot, thirsty, and windy weather has sparked wildfires the area has hardly seen before. Neighborhoods have been razed and hundreds of thousands have been sent to flee their homes. 17,000 firefighters are now fighting the flames.
Northern California reports that ten people have been confirmed dead in the fires. They also fear the death toll will rise as they are still searching for 16 missing people, the AP writes.
In Washington state, a one-year-old boy is said to be among the dead after he and his family were caught in flames when they tried to flee, writes The Guardian.
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Shady records
State Governor Jay Inslee believes the dry weather, high temperatures and wind have sparked fires that are “the most catastrophic fires we have had in state history.”
– California, Oregon, Washington – We’re all in the same catastrophic fire soup, Inslee says, according to the newspaper.
California has been fighting a large number of fires since August. According to the National Weather Service, the state has had the largest, third, fourth, ninth, tenth, and eighteenth largest wildfires in the period since August.
