Winds hinder efforts to contain wildfire
SACRAMENTO: Crews battling a deadly wildfire in northern California faced a resurgence of gusty winds yesterday, hampering progress they were making this week to keep the blaze from spreading further.
The 11dayold Carr Fire, which has scorched nearly 54,000ha in the ShastaTrinity region north of Sacramento, remains the largest and most fearsome of 18 significant wildfires burning across California and more than 100 nationwide.
After three days of light winds that had helped firefighters make headway, a ‘‘red flag’’ warning for heightened fire danger was posted yesterday, citing increasing winds through tomorrow.
Strong gusts arose on Thursday across upper ridge lines of the fire’s mountainous western flank, where the blaze, sparked by a vehicle malfunction on July 23, was still burning largely unchecked.
Those gusts were slowing efforts in the steep, rugged terrain to carve out buffer zones in front of the fire’s leading edge, Gabriel Lauderdale, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire), said.
With high winds expected to worsen, throwing hot embers over containment lines, ‘‘we could continue to see those conditions pose difficulty for us into the nighttime hours’’, he said. A CalFire status update issued hours later said ‘‘low relative humidity and an unstable atmosphere have increased fire behaviour’’.
The blaze has killed six people and destroyed 1555 structures. It ranks as the sixthmost destructive California wildfire on record.
More than 4300 firefighters have carved containment lines around 37% of the perimeter of the blaze.
Scott McLean, another CalFire spokesman, said about 40,000 people were under evacuation orders statewide, many from a pair of fires burning close together at the southern end of the Mendocino National Forest.
More than 100 large wildfires were burning across 13 Western states, having consumed more than 582,000ha, the National Interagency Fire Centre said.
An estimated 27,000 firefighters have been deployed throughout the West. Yesterday, a contingent of 100 firefighters from Australia and New Zealand left Sydney to reinforce exhausted fire crews in northern California, Oregon and Washington state. — Reuters