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Dozens of people are missing and at least six are confirmed dead in Oregon
Dozens of people are missing in Oregon alone, State Gov. Kate Brown said, as deadly wildfires continue to ravage the US West Coast states.
The fires have been raging in California, Oregon and Washington for three weeks.
Fanned by winds amid record heat, the flames have burned millions of acres, destroyed thousands of homes and killed at least 25 people.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the fires show the climate change debate is “over.”
“Just come to the state of California. See it with your own eyes,” he told reporters from a charred hillside.
The fires have burned a total of 4.5 million acres, an area larger than Connecticut and slightly smaller than Wales, in recent weeks, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Smoke pollution from wildfires has left Oregon’s largest city, Portland, with the worst air quality in the world, followed by San Francisco and Seattle, according to IQAir.com.
White House spokesman Judd Deere announced in a tweet Saturday that President Donald Trump would visit California on Monday.
What’s happening in Oregon and Washington?
In Oregon, where firefighters fight 16 major fires, 40,000 people are under mandatory evacuation orders.
The Oregon Office of Emergency Management (OEM) says the fires have killed six people, but authorities warn that the final death toll could be much higher.
Gov. Kate Brown implored homeowners Friday to stay out of the fire zones despite reports of looting.
“Let me assure you that we have the Oregon National Guard and the Oregon State Police monitoring the situation and preventing looting,” he said.
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Beatriz Gómez Bolaños, 41, told Reuters news agency about her family’s terrifying journey to safety through fires on both sides of their car. She told her four children to close their eyes while escaping.
“Everything is gone. We have to start over from scratch, but we are alive,” he told the news agency.
At least one fire in Oregon, the Almeda fire, one of the most destructive in the state, is being treated as a suspected arson.
In Washington state, firefighters are tackling 15 major fires. A one-year-old boy died earlier this week when his family tried to escape a fire. His parents remain in critical condition.
Predicted disasters
While natural factors such as strong winds have helped these massive fires spread, the underlying warming of the climate due to human activities is making these conflagrations larger and more explosive.
Nine of the world’s 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2005, and the UN warned this week that the five years from 2016 to this year will most likely be the hottest period on record so far. Both Oregon and California have warmed more than 1 ° C since 1900.
The sustained heat has caused six of the 20 largest fires on record in California to occur this year. In Oregon, the avalanche of wildfires has burned nearly twice the average annual losses in the last week.
In California, a prolonged drought over the past decade has killed millions of trees, turning them into powerful fuel for fires. Mountainous regions that are typically colder and wetter have dried up more quickly in the summer, increasing the potential fuel load.
Climate scientists had predicted that western wildfires would grow in size, scale and impact, but their predictions are coming true faster than expected.
- A really simple guide to climate change
What’s the latest in California?
Gov. Newsom, a Democrat, spoke Friday while inspecting the damage to the North Complex Fire near Oroville in Northern California.
“The debate around climate change is over,” Newsom told reporters. “This is a fucking climate emergency. This is real and it is happening.”
He acknowledged failures in forest management in recent decades, but added: “That is a point, but it is not the point.”
Highlighting the efforts of states to combat climate change, he said record heat waves and record fires were the kinds of problems long predicted by scientists.
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President Trump, a climate skeptic, has emphasized poor fire control measures as the main cause of the latest fires.
“You have to clear your forests, there are many, many years of broken leaves and trees and they are … so flammable,” he said at a rally last month.
The North Complex Fire, which has been burning since August 18, is among the deadliest in history. So far 10 bodies have been found and another 16 people are missing.
California has seen at least 20 total fire deaths since Aug. 15. Tens of thousands of people are under evacuation orders as 14,800 firefighters continue to fight 28 major fires in the state.
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