Authorities in California warned of the rising risk of wildfires amid a protracted heat wave that has dried out the landscape while setting temperature records and putting lives at risk.
California’s top fire official said that so far this year the state has responded to more than 3,500 wildfires that have scorched nearly 325 square miles of vegetation — five times the average burned through mid July in each of the past five years.
“We are not just in a fire season, but we are in a fire year,” Cal Fire Director Joe Tyler said at a news conference. “Our winds and the recent heat wave have exacerbated the issue, consuming thousands of acres. So we need to be extra cautious.”
California crews working in scorching temperatures and single-digit humidity were battling numerous wildfires Thursday, including a stubborn 53-square-mile blaze that prompted evacuation orders for about 200 homes in the mountains of Santa Barbara County northwest of Los Angeles. It was just 16% contained.
California’s fires began in earnest in early June, following back-to-back wet winters that pulled the state out of drought but spawned abundant grasses that have since dried out. A June blitz of lightning ignited some of the fires, a risk that may return with thunderstorms in the Sierra Nevada this weekend, forecasters said.
Fire crews in Oregon continued Thursday to fight the Larch Creek Fire, which has grown to 16.6 square miles of grassy areas since Tuesday. Lower temperatures and calming winds were helping their efforts, but the local fire danger level remained extreme. One firefighter was treated for heat-related injuries.
More than 63 million people around the U.S. remained under heat alerts Thursday, but that was a significant reduction from earlier this week.
Las Vegas on Thursday simmered into a record sixth consecutive day of temperatures at 115 degrees or higher. Forecasters called it an unprecedented heat wave, even for desert standards.
In California, officials in the Silicon Valley county of Santa Clara are investigating 19 potential heat-related deaths, including three homeless individuals, the county’s Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office said in a statement Thursday.
The U.S. heat wave came as the global temperature in June was a record warm for the 13th straight month and marked the 12th straight month that the world was 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times, the European climate service Copernicus said. Most of this heat, trapped by human-caused climate change, is from long-term warming from greenhouse gases emitted by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, scientists say.
“Climate change is real,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference Wednesday. “Those extremes are here present every day in the great state of California. If you don’t believe in science, you have to believe your own eyes the lived experience all of us have out here in the western United States, for that matter, all around the globe.”
Newsom said the state was prepared to fight the conflagrations, praising federal support in providing new fire suppression planes to the state. Cal Fire also has been using cameras and artificial intelligence to spot fires and alert first responders, officials said.
Updated at 7:40 a.m., Friday, July 12, 2024
