Scorched earth
Burnt out vehicles and rubble from homes are all that’s left in the wake of California’s worst wildfire, which has razed over a million acres. Fatigued firefighters are expecting more devastation as unfavourable weather conditions are forecast.
Firefighters battled some of California’s largest-ever fires that have forced tens of thousands from their homes and burned one million acres, with further lightning strikes and gusty winds forecast in the days ahead.
Thousands of lightning strikes have hit the state in the past week, igniting fires that left smoke blanketing the region, bringing the total area burned to “close to one million acres” or 400,000ha, CalFire public information officer Jeremy Rahn said yesterday.
That is considered a stunning toll this early in California’s fire season, which normally runs from August to November, and it comes as exhausted firefighters are struggling to keep up with the far-flung blazes.
The National Weather Service said dry thunderstorms could spark more wildfires and that “the western US and Great Plains are shrouded under a vast area of smoke”.
It issued red-flag warnings covering large swaths of northern and central California.
These conditions “could cause erratic winds, extreme fire behaviour within the existing fires and have a potential for new fires to start,” the CalFire website said.
Firefighters were stretched so thin that the state had turned down some local officials’ requests for help with equipment or personnel, forcing them to rely on volunteers and local agencies, the Los Angeles Times said.
About 2,600 firefighters were tackling the two largest blazes, out of roughly 14,000 battling “nearly two dozen major fires,” said Rahn.
With California pleading for outside help, several western states, the federal government and even the governments of Canada and Australia have responded.
“Many of these firefighters have been on the lines for 72 hours, and everybody is running on fumes,” Assemblyman Jim Wood of the Healdsburg district in Sonoma told the Los Angeles Times.
“Our first responders are working to the ragged edge of everything they have.”