Firefighters race to contain California blazes
Firefighters were making progress against several significant wildfires Thursday, authorities in California and Oregon said, though they warned that conditions could allow fires to quickly spread again or start anew.
More than 17,000 firefighters had managed to slow, stall or even diminish some of the major fires in California, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the state fire agency, Cal Fire. The August Complex, which has burned almost 800,000 acres north of Sacramento, was 30 percent contained, and the North Complex fire, stretching 228,000 acres in Northern California, was 36 percent contained.
And Californians in the Bay Area were able to enjoy smokefree skies for the first time in weeks: Thursday was the first day with no “Spare the Air” warning after a record 30 consecutive days.
In Oregon, the Beachie Creek fire east of Salem, which has burned nearly 200,000 acres and forced tens of thousands to evacuate, was 20 percent contained by Thursday morning.
Still, meteorologists said that dry conditions could prime the fires to spread again. A “warming trend” is expected to return to California this weekend, Cal Fire said, with higher temperatures after a relatively cool stretch.
Dry lightning from thunderstorms posed a threat in Oregon, where vegetation remains dry after weeks of high heat and little rain. Severe thunderstorms were possible in the late afternoon and early evening, the National Weather Service said, with wind gusts up to 60 mph and hail up to the size of quarters possible.
“That is always concerning because thunderstorms can produce dangerous lightning and gusty winds and even some small hail,” said Brad Schaaf, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Medford, Ore.
The storms will move quickly, but the volatile winds, Schaaf said, make it “hard to predict exactly where the winds would push the fires.”
Also Thursday, emergency teams continued to search for victims and survivors of the fires, which have killed more than 30 people, destroyed thousands of structures and burned across more than 5 million acres in three states so far.