More than 6,000 firefighters in California’s Central Valley on Saturday continued to battle the largest blaze in the US, which burned its way into the history books as the state’s fourth-largest conflagration on record.
There was barely a taste of rain on Saturday from thunderstorms that brought wind and rainfall of zero to 2.5mm, forecasters said.
Heat of 38°C along with winds up to 40kph or more in some spots, offered little relief to the firefighters trying to contain the Park Fire, scorching the wilderness terrain about 161km north of Sacramento, the state capital.
Photo: Reuters
“We had some thunderstorms that just brought us down-drafts, that’s a problem,” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Christopher Young said.
Blazes from the Park Fire, allegedly started by a man who pushed a flaming car down a 18m gully near Chico, California, on July 24, has since burned more than 162,200 hectares.
The 42-year-old man arrested had not entered a plea as of Saturday, but was charged with arson and held without bail, officials said.
More than 560 homes and other structures were destroyed since the blaze started 11 days ago, feeding off of downed timber and tinder-dry grass and brush.
The fire was 27 percent contained on Saturday, officials said.
More than 4,000 people were evacuated in the Park Fire including retiree Jim Young, 65, of Red Bluff, California, where he lived in a trailer home with his dog, a black Labrador Retriever named Sparky.
He and the dog spent the last eight days camped out with some other families in a gravel lot at a wilderness trailhead about 10km from his home, worrying every day if it was safe.
“We just found out we can go home,” Young said on Saturday evening. “Our property is safe. So many lost everything, but me and Sparky can go home now.”
The rough, wilderness terrain means it takes two to three hours to reach the fire lines, officials said.
Some firefighters are being flown to the front lines by helicopters, with some expected to stay there for days with supplies also flown in.
The national wildfire season has had an intense start, raising the risk of stretching firefighting resources too thin. The National Interagency Fire Center has already requested help from firefighters in Australia and New Zealand, who are to arrive from Wednesday and deploy to Oregon and Washington.
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
RSS