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TALENT, Oregon: On Thursday (Sept. 10) dozens of extreme wind-driven wildfires ripped through forests and cities across U.S. West Coast states, destroying hundreds of homes and killing at least nine people, they said. The authorities.
In the past 48 hours, four people died from wildfires in California, while four died in Oregon and a 1-year-old boy died in Washington state, police said. Thousands faced evacuation orders in all three states.
Oregon suffered the brunt of nearly 100 major wildfires that swept through the western states, with about 3,000 firefighters fighting nearly three dozen wildfires.
Police have opened a criminal investigation into at least one fire in Oregon, the Almeda Fire that started in Ashland near the California border, Ashland Police Chief Tighe O’Meara said.
O’Meara said investigators were treating the origins of the Almeda fire as suspect. “We have good reason to believe that there was a human element to it. So we are going to go ahead as a criminal investigation until we have reason to believe it was otherwise.”
Police in Medford, as well as Douglas County to the north, warned against rumors of left-wing anti-fascists and right-wing Proud Boy arsonists who were starting the fires.
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The Oregon fires devastated at least five 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 agricultural town of Malden.
In central Oregon, search and rescue teams entered burning communities like Detroit, where firefighters led residents on a spectacular mountain escape after military helicopters failed to evacuate the city.
A 12-year-old boy was found dead with his dog inside a burned-out car and his grandmother is believed to have succumbed after flames engulfed an area near Lyons, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Portland, the said. Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
To the south, a Reuters photographer saw small communities near Medford, including Bear Lake Estates, burned to ashes as he drove south on Interstate 5 toward Ashland.
Three-year-old Ashley looks at her burned bike after wildfires destroyed a neighborhood in Bear Creek, Phoenix, Oregon, on September 10, 2020 (Photo: REUTERS / Carlos Barria).
Some people counted their blessings after fleeing the Bear Creek trailer park, where nearly all the houses were burned.
“Thank God we were home,” said Julio Flores, a community resident who escaped with two children who would have been alone if his restaurant’s working hours had not been cut due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Firefighters said unusually hot and dry winds from the east supercharged the flames, spreading the flames from community to community and then house to house.
“When it’s really windy, these embers go for miles,” said firefighter Andy Cardinal at Eagle Point, north of Medford, where the city of about 10,000 was waiting to evacuate.
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Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said up to 40,000 people had been evacuated across the state where 900,000 acres had been burned, dwarfing Oregon’s total annual average of 500,000 acres.
“We have never seen this amount of unstoppable fire in the entire state,” Brown told a news conference. “We are feeling the acute impacts of climate change.”
Douglas and Medford County Police warned against rumors that left-wing anti-fascists and right-wing Proud Boy arsonists were starting the fires.
Local residents watch smoke and fire over a hill during wildfires near the city of Medford, Oregon, on Sept.9, 2020 (Photo: REUTERS / Carlos Barria).
Climate scientists say global warming has contributed to greater extremes in the wet and dry seasons, causing vegetation to flourish and then dry out in the western United States, leaving more abundant and volatile fuel when fires burn.
Firefighters expected two of the state’s largest fires, burning about 24 miles southeast of downtown Portland, to merge. Nearby Molalla, with about 10,000 residents, was evacuated, and Canby, a community of 18,000 about 10 miles from downtown Portland, was told to be ready to go.
When asked by a reporter if the Portland metropolitan areas could be evacuated, the state fire chief, Mariana Ruiz Temple, said she discussed that possibility with local authorities and that it would all depend on the direction and strength of the wind.
FIRES IN CALIFORNIA AND WASHINGTON
In California, officials said about 64,000 people were under evacuation orders, while crews fought 29 major fires in parts of the most populous state in the United States.
About a third of those evacuees were displaced in Butte County alone, north of the capital Sacramento, where the North Complex wildfire has ravaged more than 247,000 acres and destroyed more than 2,000 homes and structures.
A MODIS satellite image from NASA shows wildfires in Oregon on September 8, 2020 (Photo: Maxar Technologies / Handout via REUTERS).
The remains of three victims were found in two separate locations in that fire zone, according to Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea, bringing the total death toll from this summer’s devastating series of California wildfires to al minus 11.
Another person died in Siskiyou County in northern California, state fire authority Cal Fire reported, without providing further details.
READ: Fleeing harder from California wildfires during the COVID-19 pandemic
Wildfires have now burned more than 3.1 million acres in California in 2020, setting a record for any year, with six of the 20 largest wildfires in state history occurring in 2020.
In Washington, a man and woman were in critical condition with burns after their 1-year-old son died while trying to escape the state’s largest wildfire burning in mountains about 100 miles northwest of Spokane, the Bureau said. from the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office in a statement. statement.
