Scores of deadly fires rage in US
TALENT/EAGLE POINT, OREGON: Dozens of extreme, winddriven wildfires burned through forests and towns in US West Coast states yesterday, destroying hundreds of homes, killing at least nine people and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee, authorities said.
Over the previous 48 hours, four people died from fires in California, four were killed in Oregon and a 1yearold boy died in Washington state, police reported.
The number of people under evacuation orders in Oregon alone climbed to some 500,000, about an eighth of the state’s total population, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Emergency Management said.
Thousands more were displaced in the neighbouring states of Washington and California.
Oregon has borne the brunt of nearly 100 major wildfires raging across the western United States this week.
About 3000 firefighters have been battling nearly three dozen blazes in Oregon, and fire officials say about twice as many are needed to bring those conflagrations under control.
Police have opened a criminal arson investigation into at least one Oregon blaze, the Almeda Fire, which started in Ashland near the border with California and incinerated several hundred homes in communities along Bear Creek, Ashland Police Chief Tighe O’Meara said.
‘‘We have good reason to believe that there was a human element to it, so we’re going to pursue it as a criminal investigation until we have reason to believe that it was otherwise,’’ he said.
O’Meara s expected the death toll from the Almeda Fire, initially blamed for two of Oregon’s fatalities, to rise as search teams combed through the ruins of dwellings that burnt in the midst of a chaotic evacuation.
The Oregon blazes tore through at least five communities in the Cascade mountain range as well as coastal rainforest normally spared from wildfires. In eastern Washington state a fire destroyed most of the tiny farming town of Malden.
In central Oregon searchandrescue teams entered devastated communities like Detroit, where firefighters led residents on a dramatic mountain escape after military helicopters were unable to evacuate the town.
A 12yearold boy was found dead with his dog inside a burntout car and his grandmother was believed to have died after flames engulfed an area near Lyons, about 80km south of Portland, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.
Some people counted their blessings after fleeing the Bear Creek trailer park where nearly every house had burnt.
‘‘Thank God we were at home,’’ said Julio Flores, who escaped with two children who would have been alone had his restaurant working hours not been cut due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Firefighters said unusually hot, dry winds supercharged blazes, spreading flames from community to community, and then from house to house.
‘‘When it really gets windy these embers are going for miles,’’ firefighter Andy Cardinal said in Eagle Point, north of Medford where the town of around 10,000 was on standby to evacuate.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown said some 364,200ha had burnt, dwarfing the state’s annual 202,300ha average over the past decade.
‘‘We have never seen this amount of uncontained fire across the state,’’ Brown told a news conference.
In California, officials said some 64,000 people were under evacuation orders while crews battled 29 major fires across portions of the most populous US state.
About
athird
of
those evacuees were displaced in Butte County alone, north of Sacramento,where the North Complex wildfire has destroyed more than 2000 homes and structures.
The remains of three victims were found in that fire zone, according to Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea, bringing the total death toll from California wildfires this summer to at least 11.
A 12th person died in Siskiyou
County in far northern California, state fire authority CalFire reported, providing no further details.
In Washington, a man and a woman were in critical condition with burns after their 1yearold son died as they tried to escape the state’s largest wildfire, burning in mountains about 160km northwest of Spokane, the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. — Reuters