California is battling massive bushfires and has asked Australia for help
The California fires have forced tens of thousands to flee as the state’s governor said “we haven’t seen anything like this” and begged Australia for help with the megablazes.
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Some of California’s largest ever fires raged across the state on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands from their homes as forecasters warned of further blazes sparked by lightning strikes.
Several thousand lightning bolts have hit California in recent days, starting fires that left thick smoke blanketing the region.
“The western US and Great Plains are shrouded under a vast area of smoke due to ongoing wildfires that extend from the Rockies to the West Coast,” the National Weather Service said Saturday.
“With severe drought and exceptionally dry fuels present, dry thunderstorms could spark additional wildfires this weekend.” The two largest blazes — dubbed the LNU Lightning Complex and the SCU Lightning Complex — have burned about 600,000 acres (240,000 hectares) and destroyed 565 structures.
The LNU fire covered 314,207 acres by Saturday morning, making it the second-largest fire in California history.
About 2,600 firefighters are tackling the two blazes, which were described by officials as 15 per cent and 10 per cent contained, respectively.
“We simply haven’t seen anything like this in many, many years,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Friday.
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.
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.
About 119,000 people have been evacuated from the area, with many struggling to find shelter and hesitating to go to centres set up by authorities because of coronavirus risks.
Some in counties south of San Francisco opted to sleep in caravans along the Pacific Ocean as they fled nearby fires, while tourists were urged to leave to free up accommodation for those evacuating their houses.
Fire crews, surveillance equipment and other firefighting hardware was being sent from states but faced with the sheer scope of the disaster, Governor Newsom also asked for help from Canada and Australia, which he said had “the world’s best firefighters.”
In San Francisco, the smell of smoke lingered for the third consecutive day, with authorities urging residents to stay indoors.
Wineries in the famed Napa and Sonoma regions, which are still reeling from blazes in recent years, are under threat.
“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.”
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.
They added that a helicopter pilot taking part in the firefighting efforts in Fresno County, southeast of San Francisco, had died in a crash as he was attempting to drop water.
In Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties a series of fires called the CZU Lightning Complex forced the shutdown of portions of the iconic coastal Highway 1 as flames came close to the road.
Officials said the region’s rugged terrain and dry vegetation were making it difficult to combat the blaze.
CAUSED BY LIGHTNING
Governor Gavin Newsom, who has declared a state of emergency to facilitate the release of emergency funds, said the wildfires had been caused by thousands of lightning strikes in recent days in the Bay Area.
“Firefighting resources are depleted as new fires continue to ignite,” he told a press briefing. “The size and complexity at which these incidents are burning is challenging all aspects of emergency response.” In the past week, California’s Death Valley has been experiencing historic high temperatures, with the mercury rising as high as 54.4 degrees Celsius.
The scorching temperatures have put a massive strain on California’s power network, with blackouts leaving nearly 50,000 people without service, according to Poweroutage.us.
The fires have also affected air quality in the northern part of the state, where falling ash forced some residents to remain indoors.
“The air quality will be very poor for the foreseeable future given rapid spread of fires and stagnant air mass,” the National Weather Service in the Bay Area tweeted.
Bushfires have become more frequent and bigger in California in recent years, in part driven by climate change.
The deadliest fire in the state’s history, the Camp Fire, took place in northern California in November 2018 and killed 86 people.
The blazes engulfed rural and forest areas near the San Francisco Bay Area, .
Will Powers, a state fire spokesman, said that firefighting crews and air resources were “stretched thin”.
The elderly are once more in the path of the conflagration.
In Napa County, Gail Bickett, 80, loaded up her three dogs in a truck to evacuate as the fire burned behind houses across the road, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
According to AP, hundreds of homes were threatened by several fires in the area and 2000 homes were under evacuation orders.
Residents are in disbelief that the wildfire disaster that gripped the state last year is happening all over again.
But with a days-long heatwave continuing, it looks as though the fires will expand.
“We can’t have this happen again,” a woman said.
Another said, “I think my husband had PTSD from the last time, to be honest. He kind of panicked when he saw the smoke and started getting alerts.”
The fires might also hamper efforts to get the coronavirus pandemic under control in the state where there are more than 640,000 cases.
“If you get COVID and you’re being exposed to a lot of particulate matter from the fires, that’s going to certainly make COVID worse,” said John Swartzberg, an infectious diseases expert.
The fires also could increase the spread of COVID-19 because they are bringing together so many firefighters from around the state, he said.
“It’s a perfect recipe for what we don’t want to do in a pandemic.”
Vast majority of giant redwoods in center of Big Basin Redwoods State Park scorched but still standing pic.twitter.com/iWmnPNiqcO
— EthanBaron (@ethanbaron) August 21, 2020
The fires near Santa Cruz have ravaged Big Basin State Park, California’s oldest state park and home to the largest ancient coast redwoods south of San Francisco.
Some of the giant redwoods there are more than 50 feet in diamtre and as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
Some of them are older than 1,000 years and some scientists say they may predate the Roman Empire.