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Wildfires swept through California’s town of Berry Creek
At least 31 people have died from wildfires raging in states on the west coast of the United States, authorities say.
Dozens of people are missing in Oregon alone, and an emergency official said the state should prepare for a “mass death incident.”
The fires have been raging in Oregon, California and Washington for three weeks, burning millions of acres of land and destroying thousands of homes.
Tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.
Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden warned Saturday that “climate change poses an imminent existential threat to our way of life” and accused President Donald Trump, a climate skeptic, of denying “that reality.”
Trump, who is due to visit California on Monday to be briefed on the latest situation, blamed the wildfires on Saturday for poor forest management.
The fires have now burned an area of land the size of New Jersey, authorities say.
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Oregon’s Molalla is now an ash-covered ghost town after a massive evacuation
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.
- A really simple guide to climate change
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 10 people, but authorities warn that the final death toll could be much higher.
Oregon Fire Chief Jim Walker resigned on Saturday, shortly after being put on leave amid a personal investigation.
Earlier this week, Gov. Kate Brown implored homeowners 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.
What’s the latest in California?
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, on Friday inspected 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 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 more than 20 total fire deaths since August 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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