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Thousands of people in California are on evacuation orders as dozens of wildfires continued to ravage parts of the state on Wednesday with a relentless heatwave and high winds making conditions for firefighting difficult.
Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency during evacuations and power outages and called on the California National Guard to help with relief efforts. Authorities in Sonoma County have warned of an “immediate threat to life” from the ongoing fires.
As of Wednesday morning, residents of parts of northern California, including Napa and Sonoma, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, were under urgent evacuations. The LNU Lightning Complex Fire burned 32,000 acres in Sonoma, Lake, Napa and Solano counties and destroyed some homes.
The more than two dozen fires raging in the state are made worse by an extreme heat wave that started this weekend. He recently set a temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Death Valley, California, the hottest temperature in the United States for at least 107 years.
The extreme heat and drought is driven by a heating dome or high pressure system that pushes air from above, which compresses and heats up close to the earth. Thermal domes are likely to be more severe as the climate changes.
Climate change is causing hotter and more frequent heat waves across the world and causing increasingly severe forest fires. In the United States, California has seen the worst destruction, including the Thomas Fire in 2017 and Camp Fire in 2018 which collectively killed more than 100 people and left tens of thousands homeless.
Extreme thunderstorms helped start some of the fires, with at least 6,000 lightning strikes recorded on Tuesday that sparked more than 200 fires in the state, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
In this long-exposure photograph, flames consume both sides of a segment of Lake Berryessa during the Hennessey Fire in the Spanish Flat area of Napa, Calif., August 18, 2020.
Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty Images
“California and its federal and local partners are working together to meet the challenge and remain vigilant in the face of consistently dangerous weather conditions,” Newsom said Tuesday.
The fires, which release huge amounts of smoke into the air, come as the state grapples with an increase in coronavirus cases, sparking fears for the safety of firefighters and those evacuating their homes .
The pandemic has strained emergency resources and hampered preparation for the fire season in recent months.
People stand next to the flames rising from the ranch fire in the San Gabriel Mountains above Azusa, 25 miles east of Los Angeles, Calif., August 14, 2020.
Apu Gomes | AFP | Getty Images
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