Forest fires in the west coast of the U.S. posed a health risk to millions of people as firefighters ravaged some towns and displaced thousands of people.
The death toll from wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington Washington has risen to 311 and is expected to rise sharply. Most of the deaths were in California and Oregon.
Oregon’s director of emergency management said authorities were preparing for a possible “mass fatal incident” if more organizations were reduced to ashes. And the state’s fire marshal resigned after being suddenly put on administrative leave. The state superintendent of police said the crisis has demanded an immediate response, which requires a change in leadership.
Those who still have homes are not safe. Half a million Oregonians were under evacuation warning or evacuation orders. With levels of air pollution at historically high altitudes, people fill towels under doors to quit smoking. Some even wore N95 masks in their own homes.
After World War II, some communities were like the bombed-out cities of Europe, in which the buildings above the blackened earth were reduced to rubble. They would have died if the residents had not managed to escape when the flames stopped.
The body of Milicant Katerncook was found near a car on his 2ha (five acres) property in Barry Creek, California. The flames came so fast she didn’t have time to get out. On Tuesday, he loaded several of his dogs and cats into the car, but later called his daughter to say he had decided to stay. Firefighters made progress in fighting the blaze. The wind was calm. The flames still seemed far away. Then they rushed to the property. “I think, maybe when he passed, he had an army of cats and dogs to stay with him,” said his daughter, Holly Keternquic.
In Reagan alone, more than 40,000 people have been evacuated and as many as 500,000 are at various levels of the migration zone, according to Governor Kate Brown.
Saturday’s fires along Oregon’s Cascade Mountains escalated, but at a slower rate than at the start of the week, when strong east winds were blowing Benchi fires – Beachy Creek and Riverside – across each other and the state’s largest population centers, southeast of Portland. Including suburbs. Fire managers have good news: high humidity slows flames significantly.
In California, a total of 28 active large fires engulfed 1,1330 sq km. (4,375 square miles) have been burned, and 16,000 firefighters are trying to contain the blaze, said Daniel Burlent, assistant deputy director of Cal Fire. Large wildfires are also burning in the northeastern state of Washington and Washington. A total of 22 people have been killed in wildfires across California since mid-August.
The White House has announced that Donald Trump will visit California on Monday. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and governors of the states of California, Oregon and Washington – all Democrats have said the fire is the result of global warming. “In a Western country like American families today, we must act exactly like a war family to avoid a future determined by the endless barrage of tragedy,” Biden said.
The same smoke that painted California’s sky orange would help the crew block the state’s most feared glare from the sun, lowering temperatures and increasing humidity, officials said. Smoking also caused cold conditions in Reg Reagan, but in some places it was also blamed for creating the most dull air in at least 35 years. The state capital, Salem, had a reading of 1212 on Saturday morning. This standard usually goes from zero to 50,000. “Over 500 words are literally off the charts,” said Laura Gleim, a spokeswoman for the Reagan Department of Environmental Quality. “Because the air quality of the past was rarely poor, the government’s yardstick for measuring it is about 500,” Gleim said. The department began monitoring air quality in 1985.
Greg Jones, a professor and research climatologist at Linfield University in McMinville, Reagan, said the weather conditions that triggered the fires and fed the flames.
Jones said strong high-pressure areas from the southwest desert to Alaska brought strong winds from east to west coast, causing relative humidity to drop by as much as 8% and creating desert-like conditions, Jones said. . Instead of the offshore flow that the Pacific Northwest usually enjoys, strong east winds forced fires on the westwest slope of the Cascade Range. John said the conditions created by global heating are not clear, but a warmer world could increase the likelihood of extreme events and contribute to their severity.
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