About 1,700 firefighters are battling a fire that has already consumed almost 17,000 hectares of forest in California, a state affected by a persistent drought and which has just emerged from an intense heat wave.
The fire, dubbed the “Mosquito Fire,” threatens 5,800 buildings and has already forced thousands of people to urgently evacuate their homes, according to the California Fire Agency.
The fire started Tuesday near Sacramento, northeast of San Francisco, and is moving extremely fast.
Firefighters managed to contain about 10% overnight Saturday thanks to a slight drop in temperature and higher humidity.
“But an acceleration of the winds helps it move north and northeast,” the agency specifies in its latest report.
“Although wildfires in California often occur on difficult terrain, in this case it is flat terrain,” said a spokesman for the fire department, Chris Vestal, consulted by the local television channel KSBW.
Firefighters, assisted by bulldozers, planes and helicopters, as well as police, helped evacuate several towns in the area including Georgetown, Volcanoville and Bottle Hill.
“A deputy had to drive through the fire to pick us up,” Volcanoville resident Linda Gamble told KCRA 3. “We live in a trailer, if it burns down we’re going to lose everything,” she lamented.
On Saturday, in the south of the state, heavy rains fueled by a tropical storm allowed firefighters to control the “Fairview Fire”, which killed two people and burned 11,300 hectares near Los Angeles.
These precipitations put an end to the suffocating heat wave that the western United States had been suffering for a week, where the thermometer exceeded 45 ° C.
The region has been experiencing a historic drought for more than two decades, which scientists say is being exacerbated by climate change.
With information from AFP.
