[ad_1]
SAN FRANCISCO – Thousands were forced to flee their homes on Monday as major forest fires encroached into a charred area of northern California that was recovering from serious fires in recent years, raising concerns about the possibility of firefighting. a new destructive series of fires this summer.
A severe drought has already forced officials from several western states to shut down national parks as a precaution against forest fires and to issue warnings throughout the region to prepare for the worst.
In California, authorities have said that unusually warm weather, high winds and highly flammable, drought-weakened vegetation have fueled the fires that began this weekend, the same conditions that caused the year the most lethal and destructive of the state in 2017.
Governor Jerry Brown said Monday the state of emergency in Lake County, where the largest fire was raging about 190 kilometers north of San Francisco, a rural area particularly affected by the recent fires years. The statement will allow officials to receive more resources from the state to fight the fire and recover.
A forestry researcher says that it is difficult to predict the severity of California's wildfires this year, but that the vegetation dried throughout the state is a bad omen.
"You have a lot of grass and it's dry and it's worrying," said Keith Gilless, the Dean of the University of California, Department of Environmental Sciences. from Berkeley.
Jim Steele, an elected supervisor, said the county is depleted and its fire fighting equipment outdated. He also said that the county has just a few roads in and out of the area, which can hinder the response time.
Fire Fighter Chief Jonathan Cox said more than 230 firefighters were battling Lake County fire in a hilly area that made it difficult to refuel the equipment.
Steele said the area has also been fire-sensitive for many decades due to the presence of scrub and trees in the sparsely populated area, but the severity of the latest flames is unexpected.
"What has happened with the warmer climate is that we get low humidity and stronger winds, and then when we get a fire that is worse than in those 50 years," Steele said.
The fire that broke out Saturday night forced 3,000 residents to leave their homes and destroyed at least 22 buildings. This is the last devastating fire to have torn the isolated and impoverished county of only 65,000 people in recent years.
In 2015, a series of fires destroyed 2,000 buildings and killed four people.
The following year, an arsonist set off a fire that destroyed 300 buildings.
Last year, the county was among those ravaged by a series of fires that tore the wine country of Northern California.
"I think we are all so traumatized and overwhelmed by all these fires year after year, this whole community is at a breaking point," said Terri Gonsalves, 55, who evacuated her house around midnight Sunday.
She put four goats in her truck after looking out the back window and saw a big burning hill. She stays with her daughter in the nearby town of Middletown, a small town where dozens of homes were destroyed in 2015. "When that happens, we gather together.
Authorities raised evacuation orders on Monday afternoon in Tehama County, where two forest fires were burning. Several houses and businesses in the city of Red Bluff have been destroyed.
A Red Bluff police officer helping residents evacuate has lost his home, the authorities said. Red Bluff Police Lieutenant Matt Hansen said people had donated about $ 10,000 in cash and furniture and clothing to the family while they were looking for a rental home.
Residents also fled a forest fire in Shasta County.
No cause has been determined for any of the fires.
Last year, California's most expensive fires killed 44 people and crossed the state's wine country in October, causing damage estimated at $ 10 billion.
While fires were the first big ones of the season to hit California, others raged in the West for weeks. Earlier this month, a forest fire in Colorado forced residents of more than 2,000 homes to evacuate.
The last evacuees were allowed to return home last week after the rain put a brake on the fire, although the fire began to increase as the weather dried up.
The fire north of Durango was in the Four Corners area, where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah meet – the epicenter of a vast region southwest of exceptional drought, the worst category of drought.
Moderate to extreme drought conditions affect larger areas of these four states as well as parts of Nevada, California, Oregon, Oklahoma and Texas, according to the drought monitor of the United States.
__
Associated Press editors Eleni Gill and Janie Har contributed to this San Francisco story.
Source link
