CNN
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Wildfires are burning out of control in the western United States and Canada, destroying homes, forcing evacuations and injuring residents. A fire has reportedly devastated the historic mining community of Hawera. Another fire burned more than 360,000 acres in California, an area larger than Phoenix. This is the latest:
• Borel Fire ravages historic mining community: Fires in Kern County, California, “swept through the communities of Hawera and Piute Meadows Ranch,” Cal Fire said. Hawera was discovered in 1864 and was an active mining center for more than 20 years, according to California State Parks. As of Sunday evening, the Borel Fire had burned more than 50,000 acres and had zero containment.
• Hoping to stop wildfires from spreading: Forecasts for the Northwest Territories show winds in the region will be weaker than those seen in recent days, giving firefighters optimism about slowing progress on the Park Fire, which comes as more than 100 large wildfires burn across the region, burning thousands of trees. Thousands of acres of land. Temperatures will be at or below average across much of the West to start the week, with temperatures expected to be in the 60s to 70s along the Pacific Coast and 70s to 80s in the interior Pacific Northwest by Tuesday .
• The Park Fire is the largest active wildfire in the United States: The Park Fire is the seventh largest wildfire in California history, currently burning more than 360,000 acres (560 square miles). The fires have destroyed 100 structures and threaten thousands more, according to Cal Fire. As of Monday morning, 12% of the damage was contained, but evacuation warnings or orders remained in effect in Butte, Tehama, Plumas and Shasta counties. Lighter winds from the south may help reduce pressure on the eastern edge of the fire. President Joe Biden has directed his administration to do everything possible to support ongoing firefighting efforts, according to White House officials.
• Arson suspect to go on trial on Monday: A 42-year-old man, identified as Ronnie Dean Stout II, was arrested on charges of starting a park fire. Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said the man allegedly pushed a burning car 60 feet into a ravine, causing flames to spread and start the blaze.
• Progress in fighting the Dukey Fire in Oregon: The Durkee Fire is Oregon's largest wildfire, burning more than 288,000 acres. It has injured three people and destroyed four homes. fire is As of Monday morning, 49% of the virus was contained, according to InciWeb, a number that may improve as winds calm and humidity levels ease.
• Crews will see more challenges in Jasper, Alberta: While rain over the weekend helped firefighters extinguish the Jasper Wildfire Complex, the park's largest wildfire in more than a century, warmer weather in the coming days could pose further challenges. Temperatures have dropped in the area, with showers likely on Monday and highs expected to be in the upper 60s to lower 70s, continuing to rise this week. Melissa Story, spokesperson for Alberta Wildfire, said wildfire danger remains very high to extreme in southern parts of the province. “This area hasn't been as wet as other parts of the province,” Storey said.
• Tanker pilot killed in Oregon fire confirms: A statement from the U.S. Forest Service said veteran pilot James Bailey Maxwell, who had flown about 24,000 hours in a 54-year flying career, flew the single-engine vehicle Thursday while working near the Cascades Fire in Oregon. The tanker crashed and he died. “He is survived by his family members in Idaho, Oregon and Washington who will miss him,” the statement read. The Falls Fire, which started on July 10, has burned more than 142,000 acres as of this week, according to InciWeb As of today, 57% of the area was under control.
'Everyone has lost everything'
The Borel Fire destroyed the historic mining community of Hawera, with only a few buildings surviving, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“We lost everything – everything is gone,” resident Sean Raines told The Times on Sunday. “The whole town was burned down. A lot of people, friends I knew – everyone lost everything.
The number of homes and businesses destroyed in Hawera, population 250, was still being assessed, fire officials said at a weekend news conference. But Jim Snow, one of the incident commanders, said evacuation orders were in effect.
The Borrell Fire's explosive growth was partly due to dangerous factors such as high temperatures, extremely low humidity and strong winds. Snow said 30,000 acres burned in 24 hours.
Although 1,200 personnel have been dispatched to the fire, the containment rate of the fire was 0% as of Sunday.
“Some of the edges of the fire are spreading rapidly, and we have to chase it rather than stand in front of it,” Snow said. “We had some minor injuries during this incident – a lot of them heat-related injuries.”
Cal Fire incident commander Billy See said cloud and smoke cover allowed firefighters to tighten containment lines around the park fire on Saturday, but challenges returned Sunday.
While evacuation orders were downgraded to warnings in some areas, localized fires prevented officials from canceling or changing more orders and warnings, officials said.
“We're working hard to get people back home as quickly as possible,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said.
Jeremy Hollingshead, a spokesman for the Yuba City Fire Department and a firefighter, told CNN that the current situation is not favorable for firefighters.
“It was a wind-driven fire, a terrain-driven fire, a fuel-driven fire, everything was stacked against us,” Hollingshead said. “At the time, we were giving it everything we had, but again, we couldn't It's going to be up to anyone to take the lead on this. What we're going to do is send crews to high-risk areas where buildings could burn and do the best they can there.
He added that firefighters took advantage of the more favorable conditions to try to better control the fire.
“Firefighters are now from the sky to the ground and they're taking advantage of the break in the weather, so hopefully over the next few days we'll be able to mitigate a lot of the threats,” Hollinghead said.
In Chico, Calif., the largest city in Butte County, where the Park Fire is still ongoing, temperatures will drop into the 90s on Monday and Tuesday, a significant drop from last week's triple-digit temperatures. Wind speeds also continued to weaken in the Park Fire area, with wind speeds remaining below 10 mph on Monday and as low as 5 mph on Tuesday.
There's even a weak storm system approaching the Pacific Northwest that's expected to bring some showers. That much rainfall is helpful because it doesn't cause the risk of flash flooding that burns scars.
A massive park fire believed to be caused by arson broke out on Wednesday near Chico, California, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes, burning thousands of acres an hour, destroying dozens of buildings and leaving behind scorched trees and cars. 's cemetery.
Noah Berger/AP
The Park Fire burned more land Friday near Highway 32 outside of Lomo in Butte County, California.
Retired Chico firefighter John Maretti told CNN that despite his best efforts, he lost his house in the Park Fire.
“I bought a bulldozer. We cleaned things up. We made sure we had a Class A roof and nonflammable walls. We did a lot. We had sprinklers. We had hoses. I mean, I'm a firefighter “I set this up to give the brand the best chance of achieving that, but that's not the case,” Maretti said. “There's no way anyone could have survived this in this house.”
Although his property was destroyed, Maretti said he felt lucky that the family, including two dogs and a cat, escaped unharmed — which he attributed in part to his visit last Monday. Broken ankle.
“I felt pretty capable of staying. I had a hose, I had all kinds of equipment, but with a broken ankle, I had no choice. I had to leave. Fortunately, because I broke my ankle, I “Probably saved my life because I probably would have stayed and tried to fight it, but that would have been a wrong decision,” he said.
Maretti said the fire spread at a speed he wasn't used to.
“So this is much faster than I've ever seen a fire,” Maretti said. “It was just an angry fire, completely unlike anything I'd ever seen before.”
One Tehama County resident described to CNN affiliate KOVR their escape from a park fire on the neighborhood's only exit road – which the blaze had spread to.
“When we saw the fire coming over the ridge, it was actually happening and it was coming towards us. We thought that was bad. Then we loaded everything in the car and headed out,” Jim Young told KOVR.
“We got on the highway and it was burning on both sides for 10 miles. It was like driving through hell,” Young said.
The Park Fire is burning in Butte County, where the Camp Fire, California's deadliest wildfire in 2018, killed more than 85 people and destroyed thousands of homes.
Bruce Hey and his brother-in-law, Christopher Apel, told KOVR the fire forced them to evacuate their adjoining properties in the Cohasset area.
“We had a lot of people out there because of the Camp Fire…everything was burning,” Appel told KOVR.
Hey said he drove through the fire to safety, but burned his arm in the process.
“I try to rise above it,” he said. “If I hadn't rolled down the window and looked in the rearview mirror, I wouldn't have gotten burned. I was in the middle of it and I tried to turn it around.
More than 17,000 people still evacuated in Jasper, Alberta
Jasper, a popular tourist town in the middle of Alberta's Jasper National Park, suffered extensive damage from wildfires that burned nearly 90,000 acres.
Jose Tilney, deputy director of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, said Sunday afternoon that parks remain closed and more than 17,000 people are still under evacuation orders.
Figures released by the City of Jasper on Saturday show that nearly 40% of the city's buildings have been destroyed by the Jasper Wildlife Complex Fire.
The Jasper Rapid Visual Damage Assessment said 410 of the town's 1,113 buildings were destroyed and 10 suffered significant damage.
Parks Canada said the fire remains “out of control and is expected to become more active in the coming days as the weather warms.”
