14/09/2020
After two days of somewhat favorable conditions that allowed firefighters to gain ground on 28 major wildfires burning across California, winds are forecast to return, posing new challenges to quench the flames.
According to the National Weather Service, breezy southerly winds are expected to increase on Monday as a weather system passes to the north. Forecasters say the strongest winds will be over the southern Cascade Range.
But, they cautioned, “These winds, combined with low humidity, will result in elevated fire weather conditions across the region and may impact ongoing wildfires. Extreme caution should be taken to prevent additional fires.”
A fire weather watch has been issued for the Burney Basin and Northeast Plateau in Shasta County including parts of Lassen National Forest and the Lassen National Park. The warning also covers elevations from 1,000 to 3,000 feet across the western slopes of the Sierra foothills — including the area under siege from the West Zone of the North Complex Fire.
More than 16,750 firefighters remain on the lines battling fires that mostly sparked last month and have led to evacuations. This fire season has killed at least 22 people (19 since Aug. 15) and has scorched more than 3.3 million acres of land — an area nearly the size of Connecticut, the Sacramento Bee reported.
In Oregon, the fires have blazed through more than 1 million acres, and the National Weather Service issued a “red flag warning” Sunday, warning that winds of 40 mph could “likely contribute to a significant spread" of fires in southern Oregon.
In Almeda, before the fire stopped burning, intense winds fanning the flames made the fire skip around, burning some neighborhoods to the ground and leaving other properties across the street untouched. Many of the destroyed homes were mobile homes or trailers housing some of the area's poorest residents. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated in the initial fire as authorities feared it would burn into Medford, one of the state's most populous cities with roughly 83,000 people.
"It is apocalyptic,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said Sunday on the ABC program “This Week.” “I drove 600 miles up and down the state, and I never escaped the smoke. We have thousands of people who have lost their homes."
Experts say helping people left homeless by the fires will be complicated by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and dramatic rise in unemployment. Four people are confirmed dead.
Authorities say at least 600 homes were damaged or destroyed as the fire rampaged through Ashland, Talent and Phoenix before firefighters stopped it close to the Medford city limits. Although the main fire started around 11 a.m., on Tuesday near an Ashland skate park and began racing north, several other smaller fires broke out as the winds threw embers into neighborhoods and along Highway 99.
Police arrested a man they said started a fire around 5 p.m. as the main fire approached. At least four people are confirmed dead, and the cause of the first fire remains under investigation. (Sources: Sacramento Bee, USA Today contributed to this story)
