fires
Western wildfires calm down in cool weather, but losses grow
Cooler weather on Tuesday helped calm two gigantic wildfires in the U.S. West, but a tally of property losses mounted as authorities got better access to a tiny California community savaged by flames last weekend and to a remote area of southern Oregon where the nation’s largest blaze is burning.
Scientists say evidence shows Oregon’s Bootleg Fire generated its own “fire tornado” this month, with winds higher than 111 mph (179 kph). The rare phenomenon is associated with extreme fire behavior spawned by dry, hot conditions, experts said.
Meanwhile, teams reviewing damage from the massive Dixie Fire in the mountains of Northern California have so far counted 36 structures destroyed and seven damaged in the remote community of Indian Falls, said Nick Truax, an incident commander for the fire. It’s unclear if that figure included homes or smaller buildings.
The assessment was about half done, Truax said in an online briefing Monday night, and the work depends on fire activity.
Read: Wildfires blasting through West draw states to lend support
The Dixie Fire has scorched more than 325 square miles (842 square kilometers), an area bigger than New York City, and it was partially contained Tuesday. More than 10,000 homes were threatened in the region about 175 miles (282 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.
A historic drought and recent heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
An inversion layer, which is a cap of relatively warmer air over cooler air, trapped smoke over much of the fire Monday, and the shade helped lower temperatures and keep humidity up, incident meteorologist Julia Ruthford said.
Similar smoke conditions were expected through Tuesday. Monsoon moisture was streaming in over the region but only light showers were likely near the fire. A return to hotter, drier weather was expected later in the week.
The Dixie Fire, burning mostly on federal land, is among dozens of large blazes in the U.S.
With so many fires, officials have to prioritize federal resources, said Nickie Johnny, incident commander for the Dixie’s east section, crediting help from local governments and California’s firefighting agency.
“I just wanted to thank them for that because we are strapped federally with resources all over the nation,” she said.
Authorities also were hopeful that cool temperatures, increased humidity and isolated showers will help them make more progress against the Bootleg Fire in Oregon. Crews have it more than halfway contained after it scorched 640 square miles (1,657 square kilometers) of remote land.
Read:Western wildfires: Crews make progress on huge Oregon blaze
“The mild weather will have a short-term calming effect on the fire behavior. But due to the extremely dry conditions and fuels, as the week progresses and temperatures rise, aggressive fire behavior is likely to quickly rebound,” a situation report said Tuesday.
The lightning-sparked fire has destroyed 161 homes, 247 outbuildings and 342 vehicles in Klamath and Lake counties, the report said, cautioning that the numbers could increase as firefighters work through the inner area of the fire.
On July 18, a day of especially extreme fire activity, the blaze spawned a fire tornado in the Fremont-Winema National Forest, scientists say. The phenomenon occurred when smoke rose nearly 6 miles (10 kilometers) into the sky and formed giant clouds, Bruno Rodriguez, a meteorologist assigned to the Bootleg Fire, told the Herald and News of Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Those massive clouds, combined with intense heat from the fire, intensified the updraft and pulled rotating hot air from the Earth’s surface to the base of the clouds, creating a tornado, Rodriguez said.
Neil Lareau, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Nevada, told the newspaper that extensive tree damage, scoured road surfaces and damage to the soil indicate winds speeds between 111 mph (178 kph) and 135 mph (217 kph).
“Prior to last year, there had only been two well-documented tornado-strength vortices generated by fires,” said Lareau, who began studying the phenomenon after fire-generated tornadoes occurred last fall. “A decade ago, we could not have even imagined this. But here we are.”
Scientists told the newspaper that fire-generated tornadoes need to urgent study because it’s suspected they can hurl embers far afield and potentially start new blazes.
The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado but said the agency wasn’t sure how to categorize it. That’s because, unlike a normal tornado that could travel for miles, the winds from a fire tornado will stop as soon as it gets too far from the fire’s heat.
Read:Wildfire smoke clouds sky, hurts air quality on East Coast
“If they don’t have the heat from the fire, then they don’t have the updraft. Without the updraft, it would weaken very quickly,” said Ryan Sandler, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Medford, Oregon.
Elsewhere, high heat was expected to return to the northern Rocky Mountains, where thick smoke from many wildfires drove pollution readings to unhealthy levels.
Unhealthy air was recorded around most of Montana’s larger cities — Billings, Butte, Bozeman and Missoula — and in portions of northern Wyoming and eastern Idaho, according data from U.S. government air monitoring stations.
In California, the 106-square-mile (275-square-kilometer) Tamarack Fire south of Lake Tahoe was chewing through timber and chaparral but was more than halfway contained. Evacuation orders for about 2,000 residents on both sides of the California-Nevada line have been lifted. At least 23 buildings have burned.
At least 2 killed in German chemical blast; 31 injured
An explosion at an industrial park for chemical companies in Germany killed at least two people on Tuesday, with 31 others injured and several still missing hours later. Fire officials who tested the air said there did not appear to be a danger to nearby residents after authorities initially urged people to shelter inside.
The explosion at the waste management facility of the Chempark site in Leverkusen, near Cologne, sent a large black cloud into the air. It took firefighters almost four hours to extinguish the fire that took hold after the explosion.
Read:Residents say flood-hit German towns got little warning
Germany’s Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance initially classified the incident as “an extreme threat.” Later on Tuesday, however, the Cologne fire department tweeted that pollution measurements “do not show any kind of abnormality.” They said the smoke had diminished but that they would continue to measure the air for toxins.
The city of Leverkusen said the explosion occurred in storage tanks for solvents.
Later Tuesday, Chempark operator Currenta said that a second fatality had been confirmed. It put the number of injured at 31 and said five employees were missing.
“Unfortunately hope of finding them alive is fading rapidly,” the head of Chempark, Lars Friedrich, said in a statement.
City officials asked all residents to stay inside until the late afternoon and warned people from outside Leverkusen to avoid the region. City officials later also warned people not to let children play outside, use outside pools or eat fruit and vegetables from their backyards in the coming days. They said experts would only be able to tell in a few days how toxic the soot from the explosion would be.
Read:Germany defends preparation for floods, considers lessons
Currenta said the explosion happened at 9:40 a.m. and then developed into a fire. It said three big tanks were affected by the explosion, but that it was too early to know the cause.
“Sirens were operated to warn residents and warning alerts were sent,” Currenta said.
Police shut down several nearby major highways for several hours.
Leverkusen is home to Bayer, one of Germany’s biggest chemical companies. It has about 163,000 residents and borders Cologne, which is Germany’s fourth biggest city and has around 1 million inhabitants. Many residents work at Bayer, which is one of the biggest employers in the region.
The chemical park is located close to the banks of the Rhine river.
Read: 19 dead, dozens missing in Germany floods; 2 die in Belgium
Currenta has three facilities in the region. More than 70 different companies are based at the locations in Leverkusen, Dormagen and Krefeld-Uerdingen.
The mayor of Leverkusen, Uwe Richrath, called the blast “a tragic moment for Leverkusen.”
Wildfires blasting through West draw states to lend support
Out-of-state crews headed to Montana Saturday to battle a blaze that injured five firefighters as the U.S. West struggled with a series of fires that have ravaged rural lands and destroyed homes.
Progress was being made on the nation’s largest blaze, the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, but less than half of it was contained, fire officials said. The growth of the sprawling fire had slowed, but increased fire activity was expected Saturday, and thousands of homes remained threatened on its eastern side, authorities said.
Read:Western wildfires: Crews make progress on huge Oregon blaze
“This fire is resistant to stopping at dozer lines,” Jim Hanson, fire behavior analyst, said Saturday in a news release from the Oregon Department of Forestry. “With the critically dry weather and fuels we are experiencing, firefighters are having to constantly reevaluate their control lines and look for contingency options.”
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday declared a state of emergency for four northern counties because of wildfires that he said were causing “conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property.” The proclamation opens the way for more state support.
On Saturday, fire crews from California and Utah were headed to Montana, Gov. Greg Gianforte announced. Five firefighters were injured Thursday when swirling winds blew flames back on them as they worked on the Devil’s Creek fire burning in rough, steep terrain near the rural town of Jordan.
They remained hospitalized Friday. Bureau of Land Management spokesperson Mark Jacobsen declined to release the extent of their injuries, and attempts to learn their conditions Saturday were unsuccessful. Three of the firefighters are U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service crew members from North Dakota, and the other two are U.S. Forest Service firefighters from New Mexico.
Read:Wildfire smoke clouds sky, hurts air quality on East Coast
In California, the Tamarack Fire south of Lake Tahoe continued to burn through timber and chaparral and threatened communities on both sides of the California-Nevada state line. The fire, sparked by lightning July 4 in Alpine County, has destroyed at least 10 buildings.
In Butte County, California, the Dixie Fire continued to burn in rugged and remote terrain, hampering firefighters’ efforts to contain the blaze as it grows eastward, becoming the state’s largest wildfire so far this year.
Heavy smoke from both huge fires lowered visibility and may at times ground aircraft providing support for fire crews. The air quality south of Lake Tahoe and across the state line into Nevada deteriorated to very unhealthy levels.
In north-central Washington, firefighters battled two blazes in Okanogan County that threatened hundreds of homes and again caused hazardous air quality conditions Saturday. And in northern Idaho, east of Spokane, Washington, a small fire near the Silverwood Theme Park prompted evacuations Friday evening at the park and in the surrounding area. The theme park was back open on Saturday with the fire half contained.
Read:Size of Oregon wildfire underscores vastness of the US West
Although hot weather with afternoon winds posed a continued threat of spreading blazes, weekend forecasts also called for a chance of scattered thunderstorms in California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and other states. However, forecasters said some could be dry thunderstorms that produce little rain but a lot of lightning, which can spark new blazes.
More than 85 large wildfires were burning around the country, most of them in Western states, and they had burned over 1.4 million acres (2,135 square miles, or more than 553,000 hectares).
Western wildfires: Crews make progress on huge Oregon blaze
The nation’s largest wildfire raged through southern Oregon on Friday but crews were scaling back some night operations as hard work and weaker winds helped reduce the spread of flames even as wildfires continued to threaten homes in neighboring California.
The Bootleg Fire, which has destroyed an area half the size of Rhode Island, was 40% surrounded after burning some 70 homes, mainly cabins, fire officials said.
At least 2,000 homes were ordered evacuated at some point during the fire and an additional 5,000 were threatened.
The upper eastern edge of the blaze continued to move toward Summer Lake, jumping fire lines on Thursday and prompting a local evacuation order for some portions of Lake County to be raised to “go now!,” fire officials said.
Read:Wildfire smoke clouds sky, hurts air quality on East Coast
Winds up to 10 miles per hour (16 kilometers per hour) could drive the flames through timber but not at the pace seen last week, when the wind-driven blaze grew exponentially, fire information officer Angela Goldman said.
The fire, which was sparked by lightning, had been expanding by up to 4 miles (6 kilometers) a day, pushed by strong winds and critically dry weather.
There was good news on the lower portion of the 624-square-mile (1,616-square-kilometer) blaze. Crews had locked in containment lines and on the lower southeastern side, crews were able to gain a substantial foothold, allowing them to cut back to nighttime patrols from what had been a “24-7 run-and-gun” fight, fire information officer Sarah Gracey said.
“For us, that’s a pretty big step,” she said. “It’s not that easy to work in a pitch-black forest in the middle of the night.”
Crews will be able to rest and contribute to dayside attacks, she said.
“We have had day after day of red flag warnings (of extreme fire danger) and today we don’t have a red flag warning,” Gracey said Thursday. However, low humidity and high temperatures remained a concern.
Read:Size of Oregon wildfire underscores vastness of the US West
That side of the blaze also had burned into an area blackened by a previous fire, creating gaps in the fuel and reducing the spread of flames through grass, shrub and timber, Gracey said.
In California, the Tamarack Fire south of Lake Tahoe had burned more than 78 square miles (202 square kilometers) of timber and head-high chaparral in national forest land. It erupted July 4 and was one of nearly two dozen blazes sparked by lightning strikes.
The fire in Alpine County has destroyed at least 10 buildings. Fire officials expected active or extreme fire behavior on Friday because of afternoon gusts and temperatures approaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius).
Blowing embers from flames ignited a new spot fire Thursday afternoon that jumped the highway north of Topaz Lake on the California-Nevada line, prompting a new evacuation order at Topaz Lake Estates and neighboring areas.
The fire was less than a mile from the estates, a community of around 1,200 people in Douglas County, Nevada.
“Firefighters on the ground and aircraft continue to battle the growing spot under exceptionally difficult weather and fuel condition,” the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest said in an update.
It estimated the new blaze already had burned nearly 4 square miles (10 square kilometers).
Read:Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US
New mandatory evacuation orders were issued Thursday in Plumas County west of the Nevada border as the Dixie Fire continued to grow explosively eastward.
“This fire is outpacing us at moments,” Shannon Prather, the incident commander, said Thursday evening.
The fire had burned nearly 177 square miles (458 square kilometers), destroyed at least eight buildings and threatened at least 1,500 more, fire officials said.
Extremely dry conditions and recent heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
Wildfire smoke clouds sky, hurts air quality on East Coast
Smoke and ash from massive wildfires in the American West clouded the sky and led to air quality alerts Wednesday on parts of the East Coast as the effects of the blazes were felt 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) away.
Strong winds blew smoke east from California, Oregon, Montana and other states all the way to other side of the continent. Haze hung over New York City, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The nation’s largest wildfire, Oregon’s Bootleg Fire, grew to 618 square miles (1,601 square kilometers) — just over half the size of Rhode Island. Fires also burned on both sides of California’s Sierra Nevada and in Washington state and other areas of the West.
The smoke blowing to the East Coast was reminiscent of last fall, when large blazes burning in Oregon’s worst wildfire season in recent memory choked the local sky with pea-soup smoke but also affected air quality several thousand miles away. So far this year, Seattle and Portland have largely been spared the foul air.
Read:Size of Oregon wildfire underscores vastness of the US West
People in parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere with heart disease, asthma and other health issues were told to avoid the outdoors. Air quality alerts for parts of the region were in place through Thursday.
“One of the things about this event that makes it so remarkable is that the smoke is affecting such a large swath of the U.S,” said Jesse Berman, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and an expert on air quality. “You’re not just seeing localized and perhaps upstate New York being affected, but rather you’re seeing numerous states all along the East Coast that are being impacted.”
David Lawrence, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said wildfire smoke usually thins out by the time it reaches the East Coast, but this summer it’s “still pretty thick.”
In California, a wildfire burning completely uncontained south of Lake Tahoe crossed the state line into Nevada. New voluntary evacuation orders were issued for portions of Douglas County, Nevada.
The Tamarack Fire, started by lightning in Alpine County, California, has now burned more than 68 square miles (176 square kilometers). Authorities say more than 1,200 firefighters are battling the blaze, which has destroyed at least 10 structures.
Read:Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US
Meanwhile, Oregon on Wednesday banned all campfires on state-managed lands and in state campgrounds east of Interstate 5, the major highway that is commonly considered the dividing line between the wet western part of the state and the dry eastern half.
The regulation includes the designated fire rings at campsites, as well as candles and tiki torches. Propane grills are still allowed, but the state still urged campers to pack food that doesn’t require heating or cooking.
The lightning-caused Oregon fire has ravaged the sparsely populated southern part of the state and has been expanding by up to 4 miles (6 kilometers) a day, pushed by gusting winds and critically dry weather that’s turned trees and undergrowth into a tinderbox.
Fire crews have had to retreat from the flames for 10 consecutive days as fireballs jump from treetop to treetop, trees explode, embers fly ahead of the fire to start new blazes and, in some cases, the inferno’s heat creates its own weather of shifting winds and dry lightning. Monstrous clouds of smoke and ash have risen up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) into the sky and are visible for more than 100 air miles (161 kilometers).
Authorities in Oregon said lower winds and temperatures allowed crews to improve fire lines, and they hoped to make more progress Wednesday. The fire was approaching an old burn area on its active southeastern flank, raising hopes it would not spread as much.
The blaze, which is being fought by more than 2,200 people, is about one-third contained. It was within a few hundred acres of becoming Oregon’s third-largest wildfire in modern history.
Read:Western wildfires threatening American Indian tribal lands
At least 2,000 homes have been evacuated at some point during the fire and an additional 5,000 threatened. At least 70 homes and more than 100 outbuildings have burned, but no one is known to have died.
Extremely dry conditions and recent heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
While Berman is hopeful that the smoke will last only a couple of days, he said we may see more of it due to climate change.
“We fully expect that you’re going to see more situations where smoke, from fires occurring farther away, is going to travel long distances and affect people in other parts of the country,” Berman said. “I would not be surprised at all if these events did become more frequent in the future.”
Wildfires rage in Russia’s Siberia, cause airport to close
Heavy smoke from raging wildfires covered the Russian city of Yakutsk and 50 other Siberian towns and settlements Sunday, temporarily halting operations at the city’s airport.
Russia has been plagued by widespread forest fires, blamed on unusually high temperatures and the neglect of fire safety rules, with the Sakha-Yakutia region in northeastern Siberia being the worst affected.
Read:Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US
Local emergency officials said 187 fires raged in the region on Sunday, and the total area engulfed by blazes has grown by 100,000 hectares (about 247,000 acres) in the past 24 hours.
“The situation with wildfires in our republic is very difficult. I repeat that we are experiencing the driest summer in the past 150 years in Yakutia, and the month of June was the hottest on record. This, together with the dry thunderstorms that occur nearly daily in our republic, brought about significant wildfires,” Aysen Nikolayev, Yakutia’s governor, told reporters.
Smoke from the fires covered 51 towns, settlements and cities in the region, including the capital Yakutsk, forcing authorities to suspend all flights in and out of the city.
Read: Western wildfires threatening American Indian tribal lands
“We can’t see each other because of the smoke, our eyes are burning and overall the smoke is very dangerous for the health of us villagers,” said Vasiliy Krivoshapkin, resident of Magaras. “We see on television planes that are dropping water on the burning forest but they aren’t sending these planes to help us for some reason. Why is there no help?”
Russia’s Emergency Ministry said Sunday it had deployed two amphibious aircraft to Yakutia to help tackle the fires. More than 2,200 people are involved in the firefighting effort.
California fire prompts evacuations; Oregon blaze balloons
A rapidly growing wildfire south of Lake Tahoe jumped a highway, prompting more evacuation orders and the cancellation of an extreme bike ride through the Sierra Nevada on Saturday as critically dangerous wildfire weather loomed in the coming days.
The Tamarack Fire, which was sparked by lightning on July 4, exploded overnight and was over 32 square miles (82 square kilometers) as of Saturday evening, according to the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. The blaze was threatening Markleeville, a small town close to the California-Nevada state line. It has destroyed at least three structures, authorities said, and was burning toward the Alpine County Airport after jumping a highway.
A notice posted on the 103-mile (165-kilometer) Death Ride’s website said several communities in the area had been evacuated and ordered all riders to clear the area. The fire left thousands of bikers and spectators stranded in the small town and racing to get out.
Kelli Pennington and her family were camping near the town Friday so her husband could participate in his ninth ride when they were told to leave. They had been watching smoke develop over the course of the day, but were caught off guard by the fire’s quick spread.
Read: Fires threaten Indigenous lands in desiccated Northwest
“It happened so fast,” Pennington said. “We left our tents, hammock and some foods, but we got most of our things, shoved our two kids in the car and left.”
Saturday’s ride was supposed to mark the 40th Death Ride, which attracts thousands of cyclists to the region each year to ride through three mountain passes in the so-called California Alps. It was canceled last year during the coronavirus outbreak.
Paul Burgess, who drove from Los Angeles to participate in the ride, said most of the cyclists he met were thankful to steer clear of the fire danger.
“They just said this is just how it goes,” Burgess said. “It’s part of climate change to a certain extent, it’s part of just a lot of fuels that are not burnt, the humidity is low, the fuel moisture levels are low, and ... around the state, many parts of it are much like a tinderbox.”
Afternoon winds blowing at 20 to 30 mph (32 to 48 kph) fanned the flames as they chewed through bone-dry timber and brush. Meteorologists predicted critically dangerous fire weather through at least Monday in both California and southern Oregon, where the largest wildfire in the U.S. continued to race through bone-dry forests.
The Bootleg Fire grew significantly overnight Saturday as dry and windy conditions took hold in the area, but containment of the inferno more than tripled as firefighters began to gain more control along its western flank. The fire was still burning rapidly and dangerously along its southern and eastern flanks, however, and authorities expanded evacuations in a largely rural area of lakes and wildlife refuges.
The fire is now 439 square miles (1,137 square kilometers) in size, or more than 100 square miles larger than the area of New York City.
“This fire is large and moving so fast, every day it progresses 4 to 5 miles,” said Incident Commander Joe Hassel. “One of the many challenges that our firefighters face every day is working in new country that can present new hazards all the time.”
Read:Western wildfires threatening American Indian tribal lands
Extremely dry conditions and heat waves tied to climate change have swept the region, making wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
In southern Oregon, fire crews have dealt with dangerous and extreme fire conditions, including massive “fire clouds” that rise up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) above the blaze. The Bootleg Fire has destroyed at least 67 homes and 117 outbuildings.
The conflagration has forced 2,000 people to evacuate and is threatening 5,000 buildings, including homes and smaller structures in a rural area just north of the California border.
The Tamarack Fire sent heavy smoke over Lake Tahoe and into Nevada.
The National Weather Service warned of possible thunderstorms stretching from the California coast to northern Montana on Sunday and that “new lightning ignitions” are likely because of extremely dry fuels across the West.
Firefighters said in July they were facing conditions more typical of late summer or fall.
The fires were just two of numerous fires burning across the drought-stricken U.S. West, as new fires popped up or grew rapidly in Oregon and California.
There were 70 active large fires and complexes of multiple fires that have burned nearly 1,659 square miles (4,297 square kilometers) in the U.S., the National Interagency Fire Center said. The U.S. Forest Service said at least 16 major fires were burning in the Pacific Northwest alone.
A fire in the mountains of northeast Oregon was also growing rapidly and was 17 square miles (44 square kilometers) in size on Saturday. The Elbow Creek fire started Thursday and has prompted evacuations in several small, rural communities around the Grande Ronde River about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Walla Walla, Washington.
Read:Wildfires threaten homes, land across 10 Western states
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act to mobilize more firefighters and equipment to help fight that fire.
The Dixie Fire, near the 2018 site of the deadliest fire in the U.S. in recent memory, was 5% contained and covered 39 square miles Saturday. The fire was in the Feather River Canyon, northeast of the town of Paradise, California, and survivors of that horrific fire that killed 85 people watched warily as the new blaze burned.
Officials ordered the evacuation of a wilderness recreation area and kept in place a warning for residents of the tiny communities of Pulga and east Concow to be ready to leave.
“We’re prepared,” said Mike Garappo, a retired military veteran. “We’ve dealt with fires living in the mountains forever. We know there’s a chance it may not hit here, but we’re ready to go in case.”
Fires threaten Indigenous lands in desiccated Northwest
Karuk tribal citizen Troy Hockaday Sr. watched helplessly last fall as a raging wildfire leveled the homes of five of his family members, swallowed acres of forest where his people hunt deer, elk and black bear, and killed a longtime friend.
Now, less than a year later, the tribal councilman is watching in horror as flames encroach on the parched lands of other Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest that already are struggling to preserve traditional hunting and fishing practices amid historic drought. At least two tribes have declared states of emergency amid the devastation.
After last year’s Slater Fire near Happy Camp, California, “We got spread out all over the place,” said Hockaday, who said about 200 homes, including many belonging to Karuk citizens, were burned. “Some people have already sold their property and given up. But the tribe as a whole, we’re trying to build ourselves back and be strong.”
“It’s hard to watch the devastation of what a fire can do nowadays. It’s just crazy — and we just started July,” he added.
Read:Western wildfires threatening American Indian tribal lands
Blazes in Oregon, California, and Washington state were among nearly 70 active wildfires that have destroyed homes and burned through about 1,562 square miles (4,047 square kilometers) in a dozen mostly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Extremely dry conditions and heat waves tied to climate change have swept the region, making wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made the American West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center moved the Pacific Northwest region up to the highest alert level Wednesday — rare for this time of year — as dry, gusty winds were expected in parts of Oregon and new fires popped up.
In California, a fire was rapidly expanding Wednesday in the Feather River Canyon, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Paradise, the foothill town largely destroyed by a 2018 wildfire that killed 85 people. State fire officials said the new blaze, which erupted late Tuesday afternoon, covered 1.8 square miles (4.8 square kilometers). By evening, the blaze was moving away from populated areas but there was zero containment of the Dixie Fire and two tiny Butte County communities were warned to be ready to evacuate.
The largest fire in the U.S. on Wednesday was burning in southern Oregon, to the northeast of the wildfire that ravaged Hockaday’s tribal community less than a year ago. The lightning-caused Bootleg fire was encroaching on the traditional territory of the Klamath Tribes, which still have treaty rights to hunt and fish on the land, and sending huge, churning plumes of smoke into the sky visible for miles.
The blaze, which has burned an area larger than New York City, has destroyed about 20 homes and 2,000 more are under evacuation, but much of it was burning in remote areas of the Fremont-Winema National Forest. On Wednesday, the fire was 5% contained.
But even when the flames don’t enter densely populated areas, the impact of the increasingly intense fires around the U.S. West is felt directly by Native American tribes, who have managed the land for millennia.
“We couldn’t do ceremonies because of the fire and our hunting grounds, we could not hunt there,” said Hockaday of last year’s fire. “About 40 square miles (103 square kilometers) of our original territory is closed to us right now.”
Read:Wildfires threaten homes, land across 10 Western states
Members of the Klamath Tribes in Chiloquin, Oregon, are concerned the Bootleg Fire will affect their ancestral territory as well.
“There is definitely extensive damage to the forest where we have our treaty rights. I am sure we have lost a number of deer in the fire,” said Don Gentry, chairman of the Klamath Tribal Council in Chiloquin, Oregon.
Gentry said although the active fire was 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the tribe’s administrative headquarters, the council declared a state of emergency Wednesday because of its erratic behavior and rapid growth.
“With the severity of the fire, we’re really concerned about where the fire might go from here, so we have a lot of concern about the future,” he said Wednesday.
The Klamath Tribes have been affected by wildfires before, including one that burned 23 square miles (60 square kilometers) in southern Oregon last September. That fire damaged land where many of Klamath tribal members hunt, fish and gather. The fire also burned the tribes’ cemetery and at least one tribal member’s house.
This year’s blaze is another blow for the tribe, which has already seen water levels fall so low in a local lake that federally endangered fish species central to their culture and heritage could not spawn this spring. Farmers who also draw much of their irrigation water from the same lake also got no irrigation this summer as extreme drought reduced flows to historic lows.
Farther north, in north-central Washington, hundreds of people in the town of Nespelem on Colville tribal land were ordered to leave because of “imminent and life-threatening” danger as the largest of five wildfires caused by dozens of lightning strikes Monday night tore through grass, sagebrush and timber.
Seven homes burned, but four were vacant, and the entire town evacuated safely before the fire arrived, said Andrew Joseph Jr., chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, which includes more than 9,000 descendants of a dozen tribes.
Read:Wildfires rage as US West grapples with heat wave, drought
That fire grew Wednesday but so did containment and it was now 20% surrounded.
The tribes declared a state of emergency Tuesday and said the reservation was closed to the public and to industrial activity.
Another fire in Chelan County in central Washington was threatening 1,500 homes along with orchards and a power station, authorities said. Mandatory evacuations were in effect.
The Sheriff’s Office said detectives and county and federal fire investigators served a search warrant at a home believed to be the place where the fire started but the news release didn’t provide any other details.
Western wildfires threatening American Indian tribal lands
Fierce wildfires in the northwest are threatening American Indian tribal lands that already are struggling to conserve water and preserve traditional hunting grounds in the face of a Western drought.
Blazes in Oregon and Washington were among some 60 large, active wildfires that have destroyed homes and burned through close to a million acres (1,562 square miles, 4,047 square kilometers) in a dozen mostly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
In north-central Washington, hundreds of people in the town of Nespelem on the Colville Indian Agency were ordered to leave because of “imminent and life-threatening” danger as the largest of five wildfires caused by dozens of Monday night lightning strikes tore through grass, sagebrush and timber.
Seven homes burned but four were vacant and the entire town evacuated safely before the fire arrived, said Andrew Joseph Jr., chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation that includes more than 9,000 descendants of a dozen tribes.
Read:Wildfires threaten homes, land across 10 Western states
Monte Piatote and his wife grabbed their pets and managed to flee but watched the fire burn the home where he’d lived since he was a child.
“I told my wife, I told her, ‘Watch.’ Then boom, there it was,” Piatote told KREM-TV.
The confederation declared a state of emergency Tuesday and said the reservation was closed to the public and to industrial activity. The declaration said weather forecasts called for possible triple-digit temperatures and 25-mph (40-kph) winds on Wednesday into Thursday that could drive the flames.
In Oregon, the lightning-sparked Bootleg Fire that had destroyed at least 20 homes was raging through lands near the California border on Wednesday. At least 2,000 homes were threatened by the fire.
Mark Enty, a spokesman for the Northwest Incident Management Team 10 that is working to contain the fire, said that since he arrived to the area last week the Bootleg Fire has doubled in size each day.
“That’s sort of like having a new fire every day,” Enty said.
The blaze had spread over 315 square miles (816 square kilometers), an area larger than New York City. Firefighters for the third day in a row had to back off occasionally for their safety and “weather isn’t going to change for the foreseeable future,” said Rob Allen, an incident commander.
Crews were facing above-normal temperatures and bone-dry humidity coupled with afternoon gusts that were expected to create dangerous fire conditions through Wednesday, officials said. Members of the Oregon National Guard were expected to be deployed to help with road closures and traffic control in fire-affected areas.
The fire disrupted three transmission lines that provide electricity to California and the state’s power grid operator asked for voluntary power conservation Monday. The California Independent System Operator said Tuesday that the grid was stable and with the forecast for cooler temperatures another call for conservation was not expected.
Read:Wildfires rage as US West grapples with heat wave, drought
The fire in the Fremont-Winema National Forest was burning through a region where the Klamath Tribes — comprised of three distinct indigenous peoples — have lived for millennia.
“There is definitely extensive damage to the forest where we have our treaty rights,” said Don Gentry, the chairman of the Klamath Tribal Council in Chiloquin, Oregon, which is located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of the Bootleg Fire.
“I am sure we have lost a number of deer to the fire,” he said. “We are definitely concerned. I know there are cultural resource areas and sensitive areas that are likely the fire is going through.”
The Klamath Tribes have been impacted by wildfires before, including one that burned 23 square miles (60 square kilometers) in southern Oregon last September. That fire damaged land where many of the Klamath tribal members hunt, fish and gather. The fire also burned the tribes’ cemetery and at least one tribal member’s house, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported in September.
The tribes are struggling with drought-caused problems. In past decades, they have fought to preserve minimum water levels in Upper Klamath Lake to preserve two species of federally endangered sucker fish that are central to their culture and heritage. Farmers draw much of their irrigation water from the same lake that’s critical to the fish. Even before the fire erupted, extreme drought in southern Oregon had reduced water flows to historic lows.
In California, progress was reported on the state’s largest fire so far this year. The Beckwourth Complex, a combined pair of lighting-ignited blazes, was almost 50% contained after blackening more than 145 square miles (375 square kilometers) near the Nevada state line.
Damage was still being tallied in the small rural community of Doyle, California, where flames swept in during the weekend and destroyed several homes, including Beverly Houdyshell’s.
The 79-year-old said Tuesday that she’s too old and too poor to rebuild and isn’t sure what her future holds.
Read:California witnesses 7,860 wildfires, 3.4 mln acres burned this year
“What chance do I have to build another house, to have another home?” Houdyshell said. “No chance at all.”
“I can’t just buy another house, boom like that. I had insurance. I haven’t heard from them yet. I called them but I haven’t heard nothing.”
A fire that began Sunday in the Sierra Nevada south of Yosemite National Park grew to nearly 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) but containment increased to 15%. Four unspecified buildings were destroyed.
Scientists say climate change has made the West much warmer and drier, and they warn that weather will get wilder as the world warms. They say extreme conditions are often from a combination of unusually random, short-term and natural weather patterns heightened by long-term, human-caused climate change. However, special studies are needed to determine how much global warming is to blame, if at all, for a single extreme weather event.
Death toll rises to 92 in blaze at coronavirus ward in Iraq
The death toll from a fire that swept through a hospital coronavirus ward climbed to 92 on Tuesday, Iraq’s state news agency reported, as anguished relatives buried their loved ones and lashed out at the government over the country’s second such disaster in less than three months.
Health officials said scores of others were injured in the blaze that erupted Monday at al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in Nasiriyah.
The tragedy cast a spotlight on what many have decried as widespread negligence and mismanagement in Iraq’s hospitals after decades of war and sanctions.
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi convened an emergency meeting and ordered the suspension and arrest of the health director in Dhi Qar provice, the hospital director and the city’s civil defense chief. The government also launched an investigation.
Read: 50 killed in in coronavirus hospital fire in Iraq
The prime minister called the catastrophe “a deep wound in the consciousness of all Iraqis.”
Two Iraqi health officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, disputed the reported death toll, saying 88 had been killed.
Authorities at one point said the fire was caused by a short circuit. Another official said the blaze erupted when an oxygen cylinder exploded. The officials were not authorized to talk to the news media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In April, at least 82 people — many of them coronavirus patients or their relatives — were killed in a fire at a Baghdad hospital that broke out when an oxygen tank exploded. Iraq’s health minister resigned over the disaster.
In the holy city of Najaf, the dead from Nasiriyah were laid to rest. Mourning families stood over the coffins at a mosque to say one last prayer.
Their tears were tinged with anger, with some saying the disaster could have been prevented. They blamed both the provincial government and the central government in Baghdad.
Ahmed Resan, who witnessed the blaze, said it began with smoke. “But everyone ran away — the workers and even the police. A few minutes later there was an explosion,” he said. He said firefighters arrived an hour later.
“The whole state system has collapsed, and who paid the price? The people inside here. These people have paid the price,” Haidar al-Askari seethed at the scene.
Overnight, firefighters and rescuers — many holding flashlights and using blankets to smother small fires — searched through the ward. As dawn broke, bodies covered with sheets could be seen laid out on the ground outside the hospital. Distraught relatives searched for traces of their loved ones amid charred blankets and belongings.
Read:Drone attacks by Iraqi militias reflect Iran’s waning hold
Ali Khalid, 20, a volunteer who dashed to the scene, said he found the bodies of two young girls locked in embrace.
“How terrified they must have been, they died hugging each other,” he said.
The ward, opened three months ago, contained 70 beds in three large halls. Maj. Gen. Khalid Bohan, head of Iraq’s civil defense, said the building was constructed from cheap, flammable materials.
Ali Karar, a cleaner at the hospital, said the ward had only four fire extinguishers and no fire alarm system. Firetrucks ran out of water quickly, he said.
Doctors have long complained of lax safety at Iraq’s hospitals, especially around oxygen cylinders, and have described the institutions as ticking bombs.
Mac Skelton, a medical sociologist focused on Iraq, said chaos and neglect in Iraq’s public hospitals since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 have given rise to “toxic” distrust between patients and doctors.
Doctors in COVID-19 wards often say they avoid confronting patients’ families who are mishandling oxygen tanks, for fear they will react violently, he said. “But families say that they have legitimate fears about leaving the lives of their vulnerable loved ones up to medical staff that they regard as under-resourced, overburdened and disinterested.”
Iraq is in the midst of another severe COVID-19 surge. New cases per day peaked last week at 9,000. Iraq’s war-crippled health system has struggled to contain the virus. The country has recorded over 17,000 deaths and 1.4 million confirmed cases.
Fear and widespread mistrust of the public health sector have kept many from seeking hospital care.
Read: US airstrikes target Iran-backed militias in Syria, Iraq
Ali Abbas Salman, who rushed to evacuate his COVID-19-stricken father from the building after the fire broke out, swore he wouldn’t take the older man back to a hospital.
“He wants me to take him home. He said, `It’s better to die of coronavirus than being burned alive,’” Salman said.
The disaster is likely to stoke public discontent toward Iraq’s political establishment ahead of October elections, said Marsin Alshammary, an Iraq specialist at the Brookings Institution. Nasiriyah has been at the heart of past revolutions in Iraq.
“Given this entire atmosphere built around the city,” she said, “you can imagine that something as tragic as this event, where people who were already vulnerable were killed in a needless accident, will create more public anger.”