Tue 27 October 2020:
Fast-spreading wildfires have forced evacuation orders for more than 100,000 people and seriously injured two firefighters in Southern California as powerful winds across the state prompted a power outage to hundreds of thousands of residents.
Some 60,000 people fled their homes near Los Angeles on Monday as the wildfire raged across more than 3,000 hectares (7,200 acres), blocking key roads in Orange County.
The so-called Silverado Fire broke out early in the morning in the foothills of Irvine, 60 kilometres (about 37 miles) southeast of Los Angeles, and quickly spread unchecked, fueled by dry conditions and erratic winds that prevented firefighting aircraft from flying.
“It’s nuts – even inside the car, my eyes, my nose and my throat stung,” said Frederic Tournadre, a French man whose company in Irvine sent all its employees home.
The inferno nearly quadrupled in size by afternoon, jumping a highway and covering the area with a huge plume of smoke and ash.
The latest outbreak of fires caps a summer of record California wildfire activity stoked by increasingly frequent and prolonged bouts of extreme heat, drought, wind and dry lightning storms that scientists point to as a consequence of climate change.
Further east, in drought-stricken Colorado, an Arctic storm sweeping the Rockies over the weekend dumped 15 to 40cm (6 to 16 inches) of snow on the two largest wildfires in that state’s history.
“The snow has improved our chances of getting them contained, but we’re still a way off,” said Larry Helmerick, spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center.
The two blazes combined have so far blackened well over a quarter of a million acres.
