America’s biggest wildfire is already creating its own climate, and it’s getting harder to put out

The largest of the dozens of fires currently recorded in the United States has reached such large dimensions that it is already generating its own climatic conditions, making the work of firefighters difficult, authorities reported.

The baptized fire “Contraband“, in the southeast of the state of Oregon next to the border with CaliforniaIt has grown to 1,601 square kilometers, just over half the size of Rhode Island since its declaration in early July. He owns destroyed 117 human constructions and I fought the flames for more than 2,200 firefighters.

“The fire is so big and generates so much energy and extreme heat that it changes the weather conditions”Oregon Forestry Department spokesman Marcus Kauffman explained in a press statement Tuesday.

“Normally the weather situation predicts what the fire will do. In this case, it is the fire which predicts the weather ”, he said.

Only fires of titanic dimensions like this one are able to affect the climate, which further complicates the tasks of extinction, by not allowing to predict what will be the evolution of the flames in the short term.

This Wednesday, however, the situation seemed to be improving: Authorities said lower winds and temperatures allowed crews to improve fire lines. The blaze was also approaching an area burned by a previous blaze on its active southeast flank, giving hope that a lack of fuel could slow its spread.

Images taken by satellites on Tuesday showed a gigantic column of smoke which, from southeastern Oregon, moved north until it reached the border with Canada, about 1000 kilometers.

The fire is affecting a mountainous and vegetated area of ​​the Fremont-Winema national forest and firefighters do not expect to completely control it before the beginning of October.

The Oregon Fire, which was caused by lightning, devastated the sparsely populated southern part of the state, and increased up to 6 kilometers per day, pushed by strong winds and an extremely dry climate that turned the trees and undergrowth into powder kegs.

The firefighters had to retreat from the flames for 10 consecutive days as fireballs leap from canopy to canopy, trees explode, embers walk past the fire to ignite new flames. Monstrous clouds of smoke and ash have risen up to 10 kilometers into the sky and are visible for over 100 air miles (161 kilometers). The fire is contained in about a third.

the evacuation of at least 2,000 homes at some point during the fire and 5,000 more were alerted. At least 70 houses and over 100 outbuildings were burnt down, but no one is known to be dead.

Its proximity to a high-voltage transmission line connecting the California and Oregon grids prompted authorities to ask consumers several times during these days which minimize electricity consumption, to prevent it from becoming overloaded and aggravating the situation.

Smoke from the fires reached the eastern United States.

In addition to that of Oregon, 80 other large fires are developing in various parts of the western United States, including several in California, where the extreme drought after a very little rainy winter and the high temperatures of the last few weeks brought forward the fire season by several months.

Smoke and ash from the massive wildfires burning in the west darkened the skies and triggered poor air quality alerts on parts of the country’s east coast on Wednesday. which suffered the effects of fires at 4,023 kilometers.

Strong winds carried the smoke from California, Oregon and Montana across the continent. The city of new York, New sweater Yes Pennsylvania mist recorded.

Extremely dry conditions and recent heat waves linked to climate change have made forest fires more difficult to fight. Climate change has made the West much hotter and drier over the past 30 years and will continue to make the climate more extreme and forest fires more frequent and destructive.

(With information from AP and EFE)

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