More than 17,000 firefighters, many of them state prisoners, are involved in battling the blazes, which, at least in Oregon, are the first of this magnitude in over three decades.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reports that six of the twenty most massive wildfires in California history have occurred in 2020. In contrast, in Oregon, over twice as much acreage has already burned than the annual average. In the southwestern part of the state, near the capital Salem, at least five towns have been "substantially destroyed," including residents' homes, businesses, crops, and more.
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Thousands of People Are Evacuated As Fires Rage In California
Not only affecting rural areas, but the fires have also cast a thick cloud of smoke and eerie blood-red light over Salem for much of Wednesday, and residents in the outer suburbs of Oregon's largest city, Portland, were forced to evacuate as well.
Onset by record-setting temperatures, catalyzed by widespread drought and stoked by fierce winds, the fires were also precipitated by historically low relative humidity and arid soils, direct products of climate change, and rising temperatures.
Washington state governor Jay Inslee said the emergency constitutes "the most catastrophic fires we've had in the history of the state" and that "California, Oregon, Washington, we're all in the same soup of cataclysmic fire."
California, facing the spread of wildfires since mid-August, now confronts the largest in state history, the North Complex fire, which has scorched more than 1,906 sq km, destroyed more than 3,600 buildings, and evacuated entire communities in counties north of San Francisco.
Reaching as far south as San Diego county, near the border with Mexico, the wildfires have led the US Forest Service to make the unprecedented move of closing all national forests in the state, including in Southern California, where communities in the foothills east of Los Angeles have also been warned to be ready to flee in the upcoming week, pending the strength of the region's notorious Santa Ana winds.