Live updates from California wildfires

The fires burned more than 900,000 acres.

Firefighters are struggling to control the 560 wildfires that are spreading rapidly across California, burning more than 900,000 acres of land and forcing more than 119,000 people to flee their homes.

Despite the 12,000 firefighters currently battling the blazes, a dozen major fires continue to escalate, especially in northern California, where two groups of firefighters are now among the largest in state history. . Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state was “putting everything we have” into the shooting, but it was not enough, and had sought help from other states – including on the coast. East – and Australia.

Even as the fires escalate, forecasters from the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office have warned that there could be more dry thunderstorms this weekend, which could lead to a dangerous combination of lightning and wind in an area already on fire. Many of the current fires were started during an extraordinary period of more than 12,000 lightning strikes last weekend in what blazers have called a “flash siege.” They have now burned an area of ​​land larger than Rhode Island.

The cluster of fires known as the LNU Lightning Complex in Napa Valley continues to swell. It now covers 314,207 acres – the second largest fire in California history – and has burned down at least 560 buildings, many of which were homes in Vacaville, near Sacramento. This fire group is contained at 15%.

The Lightning CZU Complex led firefighters to order 77,000 people in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties to evacuate, including the entire University of California Santa Cruz campus. This cluster of fires has grown to 63,000 acres, consumed nearly 100 buildings and is 5% contained.

East of Silicon Valley, the SCU Lightning Complex cluster of about 20 fires – burning largely in less populated areas – has grown to 291,968 acres and is now the third largest in the history of the State. It is 10% content.

Smoke from the fires reaches far away, making the air unsanitary to breathe in many areas, especially in Concord, east of Oakland, where the air quality index has exceeded 150, meaning that the air is unhealthy for everyone. Smoke from the fires has been spotted as far away as Nebraska.

The damage to redwoods is deeply personal to many admirers.

Overlooking the coast, seeking the sun like they’ve done since before there was such a thing as California, the old-growth giants of Big Basin Redwoods State Park caught fire on Friday. John Gallagher thought of his sons. Darryl Young thought of his father. Laura McLendon thought about her wedding day.

“It was evening and the sun was just starting to tilt through the trees,” said Ms McLendon, a San Francisco environmentalist who married her husband in the park three years ago next week. “We could hear the birds. It was magical. Like a time out of time.

Today, the 118-year-old State Park, California’s oldest – the place where Mr. Gallagher hiked with his children in June, where Mr. Young learned to camp as a child, and where Ms. McLendon repeated his wishes at a booth of 500 people. – one year old sequoias – has been devastated. Park officials shut it down on Wednesday, another victim of the wildfires that ravaged the state with a vengeance that has become more apocalyptic each year.

From the deserts of Southern California to the Sierra Nevada to vineyards and movie sets and architectural monuments left by modern mortals, little in the state has been untouched by wildfires. In recent years, underworld has burned down Yosemite National Park, blackened the palm-strewn Mara Oasis of Joshua Tree National Park, damaged Paramount Ranch, and gutted beloved Malibu summer camps for decades. generations.

In a state that has always preferred to focus on the resurrection, the catalog of losses has grown again, with the heartbreaking news of Big Basin at the top.

Once again, California is on fire. What makes California wildfires so dire?

There are four key ingredients. The first is the state’s climate change. California has always known wildfires, as its summers with little rain tend to dry out vegetation, which serves as fuel in the event of sparks. And while the role of climate change in a particular fire takes time and scientific research to establish, the link between climate change and larger fires is inextricable.

“Behind the scenes of it all, you have temperatures that are about two to three degrees Fahrenheit warmer now than they would have been without global warming,” said Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at the Observatory. Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Land. This dries out the vegetation even more, making it more likely to burn.

The second factor is people. Forest fires can be caused by lightning, but human activity is a more common culprit – often due to downed power lines. People are increasingly moving to areas near forests, known as the interface between urban areas and the wilderness, which tend to burn.

Surprisingly, the national history of fire suppression has also exacerbated current forest fires; when fires are successfully fought, many plants that would be burnt accumulate instead. The last major factor is the annual Santa Ana winds, which can further dry out vegetation and blow embers. The Santa Ana winds cause a second season of fire which usually runs from October to April. The fire season is therefore far from over.

Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Kellen browning, Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, Shawn Hubler, Kendra Pierre-Louis and John Schwartz.