California wildfires reach historic scale

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Two clusters of fires in California have become the second and third largest wildfires in the state’s history.
• So far, the flames already consumed 915,000 acres statewide, the Wall Street Journal reported.
• Aside from the massive wildfires, authorities said they were also having a hard time asking the residents to evacuate their homes.

Firefighters in California continue to endure battling the huge flames that already left large portions of the Bay Area in ashes as the wildfires have grown into the second and third largest in the state’s history.

Two clusters of fires, one north of San Francisco and the other east of San Jose, have consumed around 300,000 acres, fire officials claimed. The Wall Street Journal reported that over 13,700 firemen were struggling to control the fires that made 115,000 people evacuate their residence.

Officials said that since August 15, lightning strikes have triggered the flares across the Golden State’s huge swaths. To date, the fires have already consumed 915,000 acres across the state, the Journal reported.

Wildfires smoke has reached as far as Kansas, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“That’s a lot of smoke to be traveling that far east. We’ve had some pretty bright red sunrises and sunsets, and the smoke up in the atmosphere coming overhead really gives the sky a grayish look,” Dodge City National Weather Service forecaster Matt Gerard told the Chronicle.

“I heard someone make the comment that the air smelled like roasting s’mores, and that’s not something we usually get out here.” 

On Monday afternoon, a “red flag” warning was issued by the state’s National Weather Service to nearby areas in Santa Cruz. The agency said that a strong breeze could reach about 65 mph and high temperatures “may result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behavior.”

According to CBS News, California firefighters continue to dig in an attempt to stop the potential blaze should the state experience strong winds and another fury of lightning.

Efforts to mitigate the fires were halted by residents who did not want to leave their homes and by mass looting in other residences, officials said as reported by CBS News.

Being cautious against looting, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart said that around 100 officers were deployed at the evacuation area and authorized to arrest anybody who has no engagement there.

“What we’re hearing from the community is that there’s a lot of looting going on,” Hart said, adding that they already detained eight people. “I can’t imagine a bigger low-life.”

Source: New York Post