More than 80 major wildfires currently burning in western states as Bootleg fire reaches 537 sq miles
Oregon’s explosive summer of wildfire is threatening to escalate further, with thunderstorms and lightning set to spur more of the blazes that have torn through much of a parched, dangerously hot US west this year.
Related: Heat exhaustion, apocalyptic scenes: what it’s like fighting the US’s biggest wildfire
Continue reading...Bootleg Fire, largest wildfire in US and one of at least 70 wildfires, torches more dry forest landscape in Oregon
The largest wildfire in the US torched more dry forest landscape in Oregon on Sunday, one of dozens of major blazes burning across the west as critically dangerous fire weather loomed in the coming days.
The destructive Bootleg Fire just north of the California border grew to more than 476 sq miles (1,210 sq km), an area about the size of Los Angeles.
Continue reading...Bootleg is now the largest US forest fire at 281,208 acres and just 22% contained as ‘excessive heat’ forecast
At least 70 large wildfires are burning across the US west and nearby states – engulfing more than 1m acres in flames – as fears mount that shifting conditions can worsen an already dire situation. Significant areas of these states are in the grips of drought conditions that are considered “extreme” and “exceptional” – the most severe categories.
Related: Heat exhaustion, apocalyptic scenes: what it’s like fighting the US’s biggest wildfire
Continue reading...Pyrocumulus clouds viewable from 100 miles away as Bootleg fire grows beyond size of New York City
Smoke and heat from a huge wildfire in south-eastern Oregon are creating giant “fire clouds” over the blaze – dangerous columns of smoke and ash that can reach up to six miles (10km) in the sky and are visible from more than 100 miles (160km) away.
Authorities have put these clouds at the top of the list of the extreme fire behavior they are seeing amid the Bootleg fire, the largest wildfire burning in the US. The inferno grew on Friday to about 377 sq miles (976 sq km), an area larger than New York City, and was raging through a part of the American west that is enduring a historic drought.
Continue reading...The fourth searing heatwave in five weeks is set to strike the west of the United States and Canada this weekend, aggravating wildfires that are already ravaging an area larger than Rhode Island as drought and record-breaking temperatures tied to the climate crisis pummel the region.
The impending heatwave comes as 12 states are already battling 71 active wildfires. The combined area of the blazes is about 1,553 sq miles (4,021 sq km), according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Continue reading...A swiftly spreading wildfire raged through drought-parched timber and brush in south-central Oregon for a ninth day on Wednesday, displacing hundreds of residents. The Bootleg fire - which has burned through more than 212,377 acres (85,945 hectares) of forest - has burned 21 homes and 54 other structures, according to state and federal authorities. Video obtained from the Oregon state fire marshal showed emergency crews up close to the fire as it burned around the Fremont-Winema National Forest, about 250 miles south of Portland
Continue reading...I’m proud to take on devastating blazes. But sometimes I wonder if anyone else sees the scale of the crisis
I’m a firefighter currently battling the Bootleg fire in southern Oregon, the largest blaze right now in the US. As I write this, it’s already ripped through over 200,000 acres (312.5 sq miles).
I’m part of a crew that arrived last Thursday. We were one of the first on the scene, and several of us have already gotten heat exhaustion, one guy got fuel in his eye from a water pump and two of our division’s masticators (giant machinery that functions like a lawn mower but for an entire forest) burned up.
Continue reading...Satellite imagery from NOAA shows various clusters of fire in the state of Oregon. The Bootleg fire, which has been burning since 6 July, is the largest active blaze in the nation, covering an area larger than the size of New York City. The growing Bootleg fire continued to devour forest in south-central Oregon, after forcing hundreds of residents in the Klamath Falls area to evacuate
Thousands have been forced to evacuate from Alaska to Wyoming amid soaring temperatures and a drought
Nearly 60 wildfires were burning across 10 states in the parched American west on Tuesday, with the largest, in Oregon, consuming an area nearly twice the size of Portland.
The fires have torched homes and forced thousands to evacuate from Alaska to Wyoming, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Arizona, Idaho and Montana accounted for more than half of the large active fires.
Continue reading...Wildfires in several states are burning with worrying ferocity across a tinder-dry landscape
As fires propagate throughout the US west on the heels of record heatwaves, experts are warning that the region is caught in a vicious feedback cycle of extreme heat, drought and fire, all amplified by the climate crisis.
Firefighters are battling blazes from Arizona to Washington state that are burning with a worrying ferocity, while officials say California is already set to outpace last year’s record-breaking fire season.
Continue reading...Officials reported 116 deaths in Oregon and 78 in Washington after extreme temperatures in normally moderate region
The death toll from the record-breaking heatwave that struck the US Pacific north-west last week has risen to nearly 200, with health authorities reporting 116 deaths in Oregon and 78 in Washington state.
The data in Washington state are particularly striking given historical context. There were seven heat-related deaths in Washington between mid-June and the end of August in 2020. Between 2015 and 2020, the state saw just 39 deaths in the late spring and summer months.
Continue reading...Left-leaning states had focused on how global heating would affect others. Then the ‘heat dome’ arrived
The record heatwave in the Pacific north-west is forcing a reckoning on the climate crisis, as many living in the typically mild region consider what rising temperatures mean for the future.
A “heat dome” without parallel trapped hot air over much of the states of Oregon and Washington in the United States, and southern British Columbia in Canada, in past days, shattering weather records in the usually temperate region.
Continue reading...Paul Crawford’s crops are dying. Salmon sacred to Frankie Myers’ Native American tribe are slipping away. Along the California-Oregon border, the climate crisis is worsening a water crisis decades in the making – leaving farmers and indigenous communities scrambling to keep their traditions alive.
Continue reading...Jacqueline Keeler, the author of a new book on standoffs with the government, tells Jason Wilson why the colonial relationship on which the US was founded needs to be renegotiated
In 2014, the writer Jacqueline Keeler started the #notyourmascot hashtag, a social media campaign highlighting the way sports teams use Native Americans mascots to perpetuate racist caricatures. In her current work, she investigates people who are falsely claiming Native ancestry for personal gain – including Susan Taffe Reed, the Native American program director who turned out not to be Native American.
“In all of this, the central issue is our domination by a colonial government,” she says.
Continue reading...Prisoners in Oregon have been helping professional firefighters combat the state’s biggest wildfires in a century. They are part of a scheme that for seven decades has aimed to rehabilitate inmates by teaching them a trade, while providing extra boots on the ground during intense wildfire seasons
Continue reading...Patriots Coalition members suggested political assassinations and said ‘laws will be broken, people will get hurt’, leaked chats show
Leaked chat logs show Portland-area pro-Trump activists planning and training for violence, sourcing arms and ammunition and even suggesting political assassinations ahead of a series of contentious rallies in the Oregon city, including one scheduled for this weekend.
The chats on the GroupMe app, shared with the Guardian by the antifascist group Eugene Antifa, show conversations between Oregon members of the Patriots Coalition growing more extreme as they discuss armed confrontations with leftwing Portland activists, and consume a steady diet of online disinformation about protests and wildfires.
Continue reading...California governor warns about climate crisis as new wildfire evacuations ordered north-east of Los Angeles
As wildfires continued to burn across the US west coast, with smoke reaching as far as Europe, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, issued a stark warning on climate, saying: “The facts are the facts.”
Forecast rain for the Pacific north-west prompted hopes on Thursday of improved fire-fighting conditions in Washington state and Oregon, parts of which have been decimated and swathed in the world’s worst air quality.
Continue reading...At least 35 people have died and hundreds of structures have burned in serious wildfires in Oregon, California and Washington. Democratic governors of all three states say the fires are a consequence of climate change
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Trump has landed in California, where he will receive a briefing on the west coast wildfires, which have already claimed at least 35 lives.
“There has to be good, strong forest management, which I’ve been talking about for three years with the states, so hopefully they’ll start doing that,” Trump said.
Trump is in California mispronouncing "Oregon" and insisting that wildfires are caused be poor forest management pic.twitter.com/zydXDoe3DT
Joe Biden closed his climate speech by noting he continues to pray for Americans on the west coast who have been affected by the wildfires.
“We see the light through the dark smoke. We never give up. Always,” Biden said.
Continue reading...This interactive map shows the total area burned since 15 August in America’s west, compared with various major cities
Record-breaking wildfires are burning across the American west.
The blazes scorching parts of California, Oregon and Washington state have destroyed millions of acres, leveled entire towns and displaced hundreds of thousands. Dozens of people have been reported dead or missing.
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