US officials on Friday warned of potential “mass” fatalities, as more than 20,000 firefighters from across the country battled sprawling deadly wildfires up and down the US west coast.
A forecast of cooler weather offered some hope of respite in the coming days, but the true scale of the destruction from dozens of massive blazes in California, Oregon and Washington states remained hard to gauge.
There were 16 deaths confirmed this week, with wide stretches of land still cut off by flames.
Photo: AFP
“We’re preparing for a mass fatality incident based on what we know and the number of structures that have been lost,” Oregon Office of Emergency Management Director Andrew Phelps said.
Oregon defines “mass fatality incident” as one that causes death and suffering which cannot be met by usual individual or community resources, the Washington Post cited state emergency regulations as saying.
“We anticipate that number [of deaths] may potentially go up as we get back into areas that have been ravaged by flame and obviously, smoke begins to clear,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said on a visit to a scorched forest near the raging North Complex Fire.
Ten people have been confirmed dead from that blaze in California’s Butte County, which was driven at unprecedented pace toward the city of Oroville earlier in the week by strong, dry winds and soaring temperatures.
Newsom said the weather “is beginning to cooperate,” with winds settling down and some rain forecast.
In Oregon, where about 400,000 hectares have burned, and three people are reported dead with dozens still unaccounted for, Oregon Governor Kate Brown also expressed hope a corner had been turned.
More than 40,000 Oregonians have fled their homes so far, with about half a million under evacuation warnings, Brown told a news conference — clarifying higher figures previously given by state officials.
“The weather system fueling these fires over the past few days has finally broken down,” Brown said. “We anticipate cooler air and moisture coming in the next few days, which is really good news.”
Dozens of people remained missing in connection with the fires, she said.
Even as the weather forecast offered hope, Newsom painted a grim picture of California as the canary in the climate-change coal mine.
“I’m a little bit exhausted that we have to continue to debate this issue,” he said in televised comment as he toured the damage. “This is a climate damn emergency. This is real, and it’s happening. This is the perfect storm.”
“California, folks, is America fast-forward. What we’re experiencing right here [what] is coming to communities all across the United States of America unless we get our act together on climate change, unless we disabuse ourselves of all the BS that’s been spewed by a very small group of people,” he added.
The August Complex Fire this week became by far the biggest recorded blaze in Californian history, ripping through more than 300,000 hectares of dry vegetation in the state’s north, as multiple fires combined.
However, it is just one of about 100 large fires on the west coast, and other rapidly growing blazes closer to populated areas have proven deadlier.
“We are at a complete loss for words right now,” Bobbie Zedaker told the San Francisco Chronicle, after DNA tests proved that her missing 16-year-old nephew was among those killed by the North Complex Fire.
Two more people were killed near the rural community of Happy Camp, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman told reporters on Friday.
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