California struggles to deal with wildfires
WILDFIRES tearing through trees and brush, rampaging up hillsides and incinerating neighborhoods: The places and names change, but the devastation is showing signs of becoming the new normal in California.
Twin fires in Northern California being treated as one are the largest wildfire in state history, and by yesterday had scorched 1,178 square kilometers — nearly the size of the city of Los Angeles.
California’s biggest wildfire on record was expected to burn for the rest of the month, fire officials said, as hot and windy conditions challenged thousands of fire crews battling eight major blazes burning out of control across the state.
The Mendocino Complex fire north of San Francisco was still growing this week as it broke the record set eight months ago. In December, the Thomas Fire killed two people, burned 1,140 kilometers and destroyed more than 1,000 buildings in Southern California.
The Mendocino Complex, which is 30 percent contained, has been less destructive to property than some of the other wildfires in the state because it is mostly raging in remote areas. But officials say it threatens 11,300 buildings and some new evacuations were ordered over the weekend as the flames spread.
Hotter weather attributed to climate change is drying out vegetation, creating more intense fires that spread quickly from rural areas to city subdivisions, climate and fire experts say. But they also blame cities and towns that are expanding housing into previously undeveloped areas.
More than 14,000 firefighters are battling more than a dozen major blazes throughout California, state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Scott McLean said.
“I can remember a couple of years ago when we saw 10 to 12,000 firefighters in the states of California, Oregon and Washington and never the 14,000 we see now,” he said.
Crews made progress over the weekend against one of the two blazes in the Mendocino Complex with help from waterdropping aircraft, Cal Fire operations chief Charlie Blankenheim said on Facebook. But the other one is growing after spreading into the Mendocino National Forest.
Meanwhile, a new fire erupted south of Los Angeles in Orange County on Monday and quickly spread through the chaparral-covered ridges of the Cleveland National Forest. Campgrounds and homes in Holy Jim Canyon were ordered evacuated. The fire sent up an enormous pillar of smoke and ash.
Crews also gained ground against another northern California wildfire that has destroyed more than 1,000 homes in and around the city of Redding. It was nearly halfway contained, Cal Fire said. That wildfire about 360 kilometers north of San Francisco started more than two weeks ago by sparks from the steel wheel of a towedtrailer’s flat tire. It killed two firefighters and four residents and displaced more than 38,000 people.
The fires in the north have created such a haze of smoke in the Central Valley that Sacramento County health officials advised residents to avoid outdoor activities.