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Improved weather conditions on Saturday offered some hope to tired firefighters battling massive wildfires on the west coast of the United States, authorities said, but the death toll linked to the fires has risen steadily and scores of thousands of people have been displaced.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown said on Friday that more than 40,000 people had been evacuated from their homes since the fires started, while nearly 500,000 residents were under three different levels of evacuation alert.
The state advised some residents to pack and be vigilant, some to be ready to flee at any moment and others to leave their homes immediately, the Reuters news agency said.
Evacuees have sought refuge in “shopping center parking lots, fraternal shelters and at the Oregon Convention Center” in the heart of Portland, the state’s largest city, local news outlet The Oregonian reported, as some families camped out in RVs.
Danielle Oliver, 40, of Happy Valley, southeast of Portland, said she and her family agreed to evacuate.
She told the Associated Press news agency that they were waiting in an American Red Cross shelter, waiting that his house would survive. “I’m tired. I’m tired of starting over. Getting everything, working for everything and then losing everything,” Oliver said.
Oregon’s top emergency official warned that authorities are preparing for a “mass death event,” as dozens of people have been reported missing since the fires broke out.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown said Friday that 40,000 people were forced to flee their homes due to deadly wildfires. [Carlos Barria/Reuters]
The total death toll in the states of California, Oregon and Washington was 27 Saturday night, AP reported, but authorities said they expected the number to rise. Most of the deaths occurred in California and Oregon.
Authorities said calmer winds blowing from the ocean, bringing cooler and wetter conditions, have helped emergency crews respond to the wildfires.
On Saturday morning, the US fire service for the Mt Hood National Forest, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Portland, Oregon, said that “a persistent layer of smoke” would limit the effects. of the climate in fires in the area.
The local weather service said people should remain vigilant even if there is a warning of dense fog or heavy smoke that makes visibility difficult.
‘Climate crisis’
Wildfires on the west coast of the United States in recent weeks destroyed thousands of homes, sent huge plumes of smoke into the air, covered the landscape with ash and covered the sky in parts of California in an ominous orange hue.
The fires are some of the largest in California and Oregon history, AP reported, and experts say increasingly dry conditions related to climate change have contributed to the intensity and spread of the fires.
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500,000 under evacuation warning in Oregon as fires ravage the US West Coast. |
Authorities in Oregon and California said they fear the receding flames could reveal many more dead in the blackened landscape.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, California Governor Gavin Newsom said the impact of climate change on the fires could not be denied.
“We are in the middle of a climate crisis. We are experiencing climatic conditions like we have never experienced before in our life. We are experiencing what so many people predicted decades and decades ago, but all of that is now a reality,” Newsom said.
On Saturday, a White House spokesman said that US President Donald Trump would visit California on Monday to receive information on the wildfires.
Trump’s Democratic presidential challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, said in a statement Saturday that the wildfires show that “there is no more momentous challenge to our future than facing and defeating the looming climate crisis.”
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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