WILDFIRE DEATHS CLIMB AS SMOKE CHOKES WEST COAST
SALEM, Ore. — Wildfire smoke that posed a health hazard to millions choked the West Coast on Saturday as firefighters battled deadly blazes that obliterated some towns and displaced tens of thousands of people.
The death toll from the fires in California, Oregon and Washington stood at 28 and was expected to rise sharply. Most of the fatalities were in California and Oregon.
Oregon’s emergency management director said officials were preparing for a possible “mass fatality event” if many more bodies turn up in the ash. And the state fire marshal resigned after abruptly being placed on administrative leave. The state police superintendent said the crisis demanded an urgent response that required a leadership change.
Those who still had homes were not safe in them. A half-million Oregonians were under evacuation warnings or orders to leave. With air contamination levels at historic highs, people stuffed towels under door jambs to keep smoke out. Some even wore N95 masks in their own homes.
Some communities resembled the bombedout cities of Europe after World War II, with buildings reduced to charred rubble piled atop blackened earth. Residents either managed to flee as the flames closed in, or perished.
Among the victims are 13-year-old Wyatt Tofte of Lyons, Oregon, and his grandmother Peggy Mosso, 71.
They initially escaped with Wyatt’s mother, Angela Mosso, and their dog and three cats when the flames reached their home, setting out in one of the family’s cars. But they didn’t make it far.
Lonnie Bertalotto, Angela’s brother, thinks the tires melted and the car caught fire. As the flames grew around them, Angela Mosso realized she had to save Wyatt. She told him to run for it with the dog.
She also realized that if she wanted to survive, she had no choice but to leave behind her mother, who had a broken knee that was to be operated on in a few days, Bertalotto said Friday.
Finally, on Wednesday, sheriff’s deputies from Marion County told the family that Wyatt was found behind the wheel of the family’s vehicle back at the property with his dog Duke on his lap. Peggy Mosso’s remains were also found in the vehicle.
“I don’t need to go into too much detail but obviously … he turned around to go try and save his grandma,” Bertalotto told The Associated Press.
Fires along Oregon’s Cascade Range grew Saturday, but at a slower rate than earlier in the week, when strong easterly winds acted like a bellows, pushing two large fires — the Beachie Creek Fire and the Riverside Fire — toward each other and the state’s major population centers, including Portland’s southeastern suburbs.
Fire managers did get a spot of good news: Higher humidity slowed the flames considerably.
In California, a total of 28 active major fires have burned 4,375 square miles, and 16,000 firefighters are trying to suppress the flames, Cal Fire Assistant Deputy Director Daniel Berlant said. Large wildfires continued to burn in northeastern Washington state too.
In all, 19 people have died in California since wildfires began breaking out across the state in mid-August.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and the governors of California, Oregon and Washington state — all Democrats — have said the fires are a consequence of global warming.
“We absolutely must act now to avoid a future defined by an unending barrage of tragedies like the one American families are enduring across the West today,” Biden said.