California fires cover 1 million acres amid fears of new spread
LOS ANGELES: Firefighters on Sunday 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 400,000 hectares, according to CalFire public information officer Jeremy Rahn.
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 already struggling to keep up with the far-flung blazes.
The National Weather Service said dry thunderstorms could spark additional wildfires, adding 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 behavior within the existing fires, and have a potential for new fires to start,’ the CalFire website said.
Firefighters are stretched so thin that the state has 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 are now tackling the two largest blazes, out of roughly 14,000 battling ‘nearly two dozen major fires,’ according to 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.”
The disparate force battling the many blazes now includes 2,400 fire engines, 60 of them from other states, with several hundred more requested, CalFire said.
Governor Gavin Newsom said Saturday that the White House had granted a request for a presidential disaster declaration to aid in the state’s response.
Five deaths have been linked to the latest flare-ups, with four bodies recovered on Thursday, including three from a burned house in a rural area of Napa County.
But many residents have refused evacuation orders.
“At least if we’re here, we know exactly what’s going on,” Napa resident John Newman, 68, told the San Francisco Chronicle as he sat in a lawn chair in his driveway.
“Family is worried, but it’s a little different if you’re here firsthand.” Nature reserves were also ravaged. The Big Basin Redwoods State Park said that some of its historic buildings had been destroyed by flames.
The park, where giant redwood trees of well over 500 years old can be found, was ‘ extensively damaged,’ it said.