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A California fire spread through uninhabited mountain wilderness on Thursday, but posed no immediate threat to nearby Paradise, site of the deadliest wildfire in recent U.S. history . Still, survivors of the 2018 fire feared history would repeat itself.
The Dixie Fire had burned 3.5 square miles of brush and woodland near the Feather River Canyon area of Butte County, northeast of Paradise and moved into National Forest Land in neighboring Plumas County.
There was no lockdown and authorities kept a warning in place for residents of the tiny communities of Pulga and eastern Concow to be ready to leave.
Firefighter Garrett Suza, of the Chiloquin Forest Service, clears a hot spot on the northeast side of the Bootleg fire on Wednesday, July 14, 2021, near Sprague River, Oregon (AP)
In the early hours of the morning, the blaze spread along steep, hard-to-reach terrain about 10 miles from Paradise, the hilltop town that was virtually incinerated by the campfire that killed 85 people. The current blaze, which broke out in the rugged Feather River valley northeast of Paradise, has not progressed towards the town and residents have not been ordered to evacuate.
Larry Peterson, whose house next door to Magalia survived the previous blaze, said some of his neighbors were gathering their things in case they had to flee.
“Anytime you have a fire after what we’ve been through, and another one comes up, you have to worry,” he told KHSL-TV.
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Other residents filled up with water and other items.
“We almost left with our clothes on our backs” in the previous fire, said Jennifer Younie of Paradise. “So this time we are looking to be more prepared and more vigilant.”
Joyce Mclean’s house burned down last time but she has rebuilt it and will start over if necessary, she told the station.
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“We take each day as it comes and if it happens, it happens,” Mclean said. “There’s not much we can do about it.”
Because little foliage has grown back in the area since the Paradise fire in 2018, there is nothing left there for the current fire to burn, Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly said in Sacramento. Bee.
“It’s probably not a direct threat at the moment,” he said. The blaze is one of nearly 70 active wildfires that have destroyed homes and burned an estimated 1,562 square miles – a combined area larger than Rhode Island – in a dozen mostly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
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In southern Oregon, the Bootleg Fire, the largest forest fire currently burning in the United States, covered more than 355 square miles by early Thursday after a day of extreme behavior and explosive growth. Twenty-one homes were destroyed and 1,900 more remain at risk in the Fremont-Winema National Forest area just north of California, which is experiencing a historic drought.
“This fire will continue to grow – the extremely dry vegetation and the weather are not in our favor,” Joe Hessel, an incident commander, said in a statement.
The nearby log fire, which started as three small fires on Monday, reached more than 7.5 square miles as winds pushed the flames east through the wilderness.
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Tim and Dee McCarley could see trees exploding in flames in their rearview mirrors as they fled the blaze last week at the last minute. They had delayed their departure to pack other belongings and search for their missing cat.
“The sheriff’s department was there and they said, ‘If you don’t get out of here now then you’re going to die,’” said Tim McCarley, 67, as he, his wife and his stepson walked away. were resting Wednesday at a shelter at the Klamath County Fairgrounds.
“We were running around like a chick with our heads cut off, throwing stuff in the car. Then we say, ‘Okay, that’s it… we’ve got to go. “
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Tim McCarley was allowed to return briefly after the fire broke out on their rural community northwest of Bly. He found his house still standing and their cat inside safe and sound. But the flames had crept within 5 feet of their home, the heat melting their trailer and storage units until they looked “like a can of melted beer,” he said. to The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
The National Weather Service tweeted Wednesday evening that a “terrifying” satellite image showed gigantic clouds fueled by smoke and hot air had formed over the blaze – a sign that the fire was so intense that it created its own weather, with irregular winds and for lightning caused by the fire.
“Please send your positive thoughts and best wishes to the firefighters.… It’s a tough time for them right now,” the tweet read.
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Extremely dry conditions and heat waves linked to climate change swept through the region, making forest fires more difficult to fight. Climate change has made the American West much hotter and drier over the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
An extreme heat wave late last month sucked in vegetation in the Pacific Northwest, where firefighters say they face conditions more typical of late summer or fall than beginning of July. The North West Interagency Coordination Center raised the region to the highest alert level on Wednesday as dry gusts were expected in some areas and new fires broke out.
In California, the state’s largest fire so far this year has reached 156 square miles north of Lake Tahoe, near the Nevada state border.
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The Beckwourth complex, an amalgamation of two lightning-triggered fires, was 68% contained, but further evacuations were ordered from the north side as winds carried embers before the blaze, officials said Thursday morning. Plumas national forest.
The blaze “has created its own independent weather conditions as the day progresses,” according to a statement.
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A wildfire threatening more than 1,500 homes near Wenatchee, Wash. Reached 14 square miles Thursday morning and was about 10 percent contained, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources said.
About 200 firefighters were battling the Red Apple blaze near the north-central Washington city known for its apples. The blaze also threatened apple orchards and an electrical substation, but no structures were lost, officials said.
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