Searching for survivors as wildfires torch millions of acres in western U.S.
By Deborah Bloom and Adrees Latif
PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - Crews were to resume searching for the dead on Sunday among blackened ruins left by massive wildfires raging in three western U.S. states, where millions of acres have burned in weeks and "mass fatality" incidents are feared in Oregon.
A blitz of wildfires across Oregon, California and Washington has destroyed thousands of homes and a half dozen small towns this summer, scorching a landscape the size of New Jersey and killing more than two dozen people since early August.
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After four days of brutally hot, windy weather, the weekend brought calmer winds blowing inland from the Pacific Ocean, and cooler, moister conditions that helped crews make headway against blazes that had burned unchecked earlier in the week.
Still, emergency officials worried that the shifting weather might not bring much relief to southern Oregon, where an apocalyptic scene of charred residential subdivisions and trailer parks stretched for miles along Highway 99 south of Medford through the neighboring communities of Phoenix and Talent.
Anna Reid and Hunter Raab, both from Seattle, check out the Space Needle as smoke from wildfires covers the skyline behind it in Seattle, Washington, U.S., September 12, 2020. REUTERS/Karen Ducey
"We're concerned that the incoming front is not going to provide a lot of rain here in the Medford region and it's going to bring increased winds," Bureau of Land Management spokesman Kyle Sullivan told Reuters in a telephone interview on Sunday.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown called the perilous blazes a "once-in-a-generation event," and the director of Oregon's office of emergency management, Andrew Phelps, said authorities were bracing for the possibility of "mass fatality" incidents.
At least ten people have been killed in Oregon, according to the office of emergency management. Brown has said that dozens of people remained missing across three counties.
"There are going to be a number of fatalities, folks that just couldn't get warning in time and couldn't evacuate their homes and get to safety," Phelps told MSNBC on Friday.
There were 38 actives fires burning in Oregon as of Sunday morning, according to the state's office of emergency management website.
Friends Maria Arroyo, Kim Weden, Caitlin Monten and Kadri Golpanath, all from Kirkland, Washington take a selfie in front of the Space Needle as smoke from wildfires covers the skyline of Seattle, Washington, U.S., September 12, 2020. REUTERS/Karen Ducey
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In California, tens of thousands of firefighters were battling 28 major wildfires as of Saturday afternoon, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Improving weather conditions had helped them gain a measure of containment over most of the blazes.
The White House said Trump, a Republican, will meet with federal and California officials on Monday. The president has said that western governors bear some of the blame for intense fire seasons in recent years, accusing them of poor forest management.
Trump's Democratic opponent in the November election, Joe Biden, on Saturday linked the conflagrations to climate change, echoing comments made a day earlier by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
More than 4,000 homes and other structures have been incinerated in California alone over the past three weeks. Three million acres of land have been burned in the state, according to the state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
A farm is leveled by the South Obenchain Fire along Butte Falls Highway in Eagle Point, Oregon, U.S., September 10, 2020. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
Thick smoke and ash from the fires has darkened the sky over the Pacific Northwest since Labor Day, creating some of the world's worst air-quality levels and driving residents indoors.
In Portland, where more than 100 days of political protests have turned increasingly tense in recent weeks, the Multnomah County Sheriff chastised residents for setting up their own checkpoints to stop cars after conspiracy theories spread on social media that members of Black Lives Matter or Antifa were lighting fires. Local officials have called those assertions groundless.
Facebook said on Saturday it was now removing false claims that the wildfires in Oregon were started by certain groups.
"This is based on confirmation from law enforcement that these rumors are forcing local fire and police agencies to divert resources from fighting the fires and protecting the public," a Facebook spokesman said.
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Thumbnail courtesy of REUTERS/Karen Ducey.
(Reporting by Deborah Bloom in Portland, Ore.; Additional reporting by Carlos Barria, Adrees Latif, Dan Whitcomb, Jonathan Allen, Jeff Mason, Gabriella Borter and Aishwarya Nair; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Nick Zieminski)
