California’s largest wildfire so far this year steadily expanded overnight after exploding in size over the weekend and forcing thousands of people to evacuate homes in remote areas just west of Yosemite National Park, officials said yesterday.
Fuelled by extreme heat and tinder-dry forests and underbrush, the Oak Fire had consumed 16,791 acres (6,795 hectares) by morning yesterday, an increase of 1,200 acres overnight, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
The fire, now more than half the size of Paris at 6,795 hectares (16,791 acres), was 10% contained as it moved east near the town of Mariposa Pines.
“What we’re seeing on this fire is very indicative of what we’ve seen in fires throughout California, in the West over the last two years,” Jon Heggie, a Cal Fire battalion chief, told CNN, adding: “These fires are burning with just such a velocity and intensity it makes it extremely challenging and extremely dangerous for both the public and the firefighters.”
“It’s moving so quickly it’s not giving people a lot of time and they sometimes are just going to have to evacuate with just the shirts on their back,” he said.
It was still more than 16km (10 miles) from Yosemite, famed for its giant, ancient sequoia trees, which had been threatened this month by a separate fire that is now 80% contained.
The latest blaze – which has already forced thousands to evacuate – comes as much of the United States remain in the grip of a sweltering heatwave.
“In certain areas of the fire perimeter there was minimal fire behaviour last night,” said Cal Fire spokesperson Jonathan Pierce. “In other parts of the fire it remained active, especially in the timber due to high tree mortality.”
The cause of the fire remained under investigation.
Since beginning on Friday, the fire had chased more than 3,700 people from their homes, including Wes Smith, a Mariposa County Sheriff Department officer and his wife Jane.
The couple lost their home of 37 years in the blaze, their son Nick wrote on a GoFundMe page.
“It is devastating to lose everything literally in the blink of an eye without notice,” he wrote.
The fire has destroyed 10 structures and damaged five, fire officials said.
High temperatures in the area yesterday were expected to reach 37° Celsius (98° Fahrenheit) with a slight breeze throughout the day.
A chance of thunderstorms was in the forecast throughout the week, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.
More than two decades of drought and rising temperatures have conspired to make California more vulnerable than ever to wildfires, with the two most devastating years on record coming in 2020 and 2021, when more than 6.8mn acres (2.75mn hectares) burned, an area greater than the size of Rwanda.
On Saturday California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Mariposa County, citing “conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property”.
In recent years, California and other parts of the western United States have been ravaged by huge and fast-moving wildfires, driven by years of drought and a warming climate.
“What I can tell you is this is a direct result of what is climate change,” Cal Fire’s Heggie told CNN. “You can’t have a 10-year drought in California and expect things to be the same. We’re now paying the price for that 10-year drought. “That drought is what drives what we are calling megafires.”
Evidence of global warming could be seen elsewhere in the country, as 60mn Americans were under a heat advisory yesterday.
Temperatures of 37C or more are forecast across parts of eastern Kansas and Oklahoma into southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.
Not even the usually cool Pacific Northwest will escape the far-reaching heat, with temperatures forecast to reach record highs in some areas.
Cities have opened cooling stations and increased outreach to at-risk communities such as the homeless and those without 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.
The extreme weather prompted former vice-president Al Gore, a tireless climate advocate, to issue a stark warning on Sunday about “inaction” by US lawmakers.
Asked whether he believes that US President Joe Biden should declare a climate emergency, which would grant him additional policy powers, Gore was blunt.
“Mother Nature has already declared it a global emergency,” Gore told ABC.
Air Tanker 162 makes a fire retardant drop at the Oak Fire near Mariposa, California.
