A fierce wildfire in California grew on Monday, burning several thousand acres and forcing evacuations as tens of millions of Americans were scorched by scorching heat over the weekend. More than 2,000 firefighters, supported by 17 helicopters, have been dispatched to the Oak Fire, which broke out Friday near Yosemite National Park, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
But three days after it started, the fire has already consumed more than 16,700 acres and was 10 percent contained as of early Monday morning, the agency said.
“Extreme drought conditions have resulted in critical fuel moisture levels,” according to Cal Fire.
Described as “explosive” by officials, the blaze left a trail of ash, gutted vehicles and twisted remains of property as emergency personnel worked to evacuate residents and protect structures in its path.
It has already damaged or destroyed 15 properties, with thousands more homes and businesses at risk, CBS News correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti reports.
Smoke from the fire — which can be seen from the International Space Station — prompted an air quality advisory for the San Francisco Bay Area on Monday, Vigliotti reported.
A firefighter works to control a backfire operation conducted to slow the progress of the Oak Fire on a hillside in Mariposa County, California, on July 24, 2022. David Odisho/Bloomberg via Getty Images
More than 6,000 people have been evacuated, said Hector Vasquez, a Cal Fire official, and the Oak Fire is the largest in the state so far.
California firefighters have been dispatched to more than 4,000 wildfires this year.
“The fire cycle here, before these 1,500-year droughts that we’re in, was like a big one every 15, 20 years, now we have multiple big fires every year,” Beth Pratt, regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation, said Vigliotti. “It’s horrifying, it’s absolutely horrifying.”
Linda Reynolds-Brown and her husband Aubrey waited for news of the fate of their home from an evacuation center at an elementary school. They fled as ash rained down and fire raced down a hill toward their property. “It just looked like it was over our house and coming at us really fast,” Reynolds-Brown told KCRA-TV.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday declared a state of emergency in Mariposa County, citing “conditions of extreme danger to the safety of people and property.”
In recent years, California and other parts of the Western United States have been ravaged by massive and fast-growing wildfires fueled by years of drought and a warming climate.
Evidence of global warming could be seen elsewhere in the country as 85 million Americans in more than a dozen states were under heat warnings over the weekend.
The crisis prompted former Vice President Al Gore, a tireless climate advocate, to issue stark warnings Sunday about the “inaction” of lawmakers.
Asked if he thought President Biden should declare a climate emergency that would give him additional policy powers, Gore was blunt.
“Mother Nature has already declared it a global emergency,” he said on the ABC News talk show “This Week.”
And “it’s got to get much, much worse, and quickly,” he said separately on NBC.
But he also suggested that recent crises, including deadly heat waves in Europe, could serve as a wake-up call for members of Congress who have so far refused to embrace efforts to combat climate change.
“I think these extreme events that keep getting worse and more severe are really starting to change minds,” he said.
Central and northeastern regions are bearing the brunt of the extreme heat, which is expected to ease somewhat on Monday.
“Scorching heat will continue across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast this evening before the upper slope over Canada descends across the region to moderate temperatures tomorrow,” the National Weather Service said Sunday afternoon.
But not all regions are expected to cool off: Temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit or more are forecast for parts of eastern Kansas and Oklahoma to southern Missouri and northern Arkansas in the coming days.
Even the normally cool Pacific Northwest won’t escape the far-flung heat, with high temperatures “forecast to steadily increase over the next several days, leading to the possibility of record-breaking temperatures,” the weather service added.
Cities were forced to open cooling stations and increase coverage to at-risk communities such as the homeless and those without access to air conditioning.
Various regions of the globe have been hit by extreme heat waves in recent months, such as Western Europe in July and India in March to April, incidents that scientists say are an unmistakable sign of a warming climate.
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