An airplane makes a retardant drop over homes in California. Photo:Getty
Thousands evacuated after intense fires sparked in California
By Patryk Krych | The World Daily | AUGUST 20th 2020
People numbering the thousands were forced to flee their homes after fires, sparked by lightning strikes across dry woodlands, burned across the state of California, destroying many houses and killing a helicopter pilot.
The many forced to evacuate the searing blazes had already been dealing with blackouts, as well as the extended issues regarding coronavirus spread and quarantine. The burning of numerous homes is thought to only be the beginning, as the flames have been spreading at a rapid rate, overwhelming fire departments and first responders in the state.
Over the course of a 72-hour stretch, somewhere around 11,000 lightning strikes had been documented this week. This is following the severe period of heatwaves that had tormented the world, leaving much of the global woodlands dry and extremely flammable.
“It’s kind of an overwhelming fire siege,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He went on to add that the blazes were smouldering in just about every Bay Area county, except for the highly urban San Francisco. “So basically, everywhere there’s land to burn, there’s land burning in the Bay Area.”
According to Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency, the wildfires that’d been busily spreading through the state’s Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties have gone on to cover what’s estimated to be at least 46,225 acres. Cal Fire had also said that on Wednesday, disaster struck when a helicopter crashed in Western Fresno county during a water dropping mission, killing the pilot as a result.
The many hills and mountains just adjacent to Northern California’s wine country, severely dry as a cause of heatwaves, had particular trouble with the many fast-spreading flames. In the town of Vacaville nearby, police officials warned that the evacuation of a state prison was initiated as a cause of the encroaching blazes. Officials also went on to report that 50 structures have burned down in the town, and another 50 had been damaged by the fires.
California Governor Gavin Newsom told a news conference that “We are experiencing fires the like of which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” having additionally stated that he’d requested the assistance of 375 fire engines from outside of the state, calling for aid. “As those lightning strikes spark, as you have a lot of smoke, you have a difficult time determining the total number of fires until certain things clear and we have the opportunity to go to more remote parts of the state.”
