A violent fire that has ravaged the Californian jungle since Friday continued to spread this Sunday, causing the evacuation of thousands of people, in a context of strong heat spikes that affect tens of millions of Americans across the country. The fire, dubbed the “Oak Fire,” is sweeping through Mariposa County, near Yosemite National Park and its famous giant sequoia trees.
“It has expanded significantly in the northern part, moving further into the Sierra National Forest,” according to a bulletin from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Favored by “extreme drought”, winds and rising temperatures, the fire, fought by some 2,000 firefighters, burned at least 5,500 hectares of forest, destroyed 10 properties, damaged another five and threatened more than 2,500, he said. a spokeswoman for this department.
More than 6000 evacuations
More than 6,000 people, mostly living in small high-rise communities, had to evacuate on Saturday, according to another California fire department spokesman, quoted by the Los Angeles Times.
“It was a scare when we left, because they were throwing ashes on us, and we had such a vision of that cloud (of smoke). It seemed like it was over our house and it came to us very quickly, ”a woman who had to leave her house testified on local channel KCRA 3.
“We were just starting to get our stuff together. I went up the hill to look and I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ (the fire) was coming fast,” her husband added, near a school in Mariposa that had been converted into an emergency reception center. .
“oak fire”
Yosemite Park, one of the most famous in the world, had suffered a fire in mid-July, whose flames threatened its giant sequoia trees. The American West has already experienced forest fires of exceptional magnitude and intensity in recent years, with a marked lengthening of the fire season, a phenomenon that scientists attribute to climate change.
“Oak Fire” is one of the most dramatic manifestations of the heat wave that affects the United States this weekend, in the Northwest, the Center and the Northeast. A map from the National Weather Service (NWS) shows a very large part of the country, including California, all of the south, then much of the east coast, affected by temperatures between 37 and 43 degrees.
“Things are going to get worse”
“It will be extremely oppressive, especially in major metropolitan areas from Washington to New York to Boston.” the NWS wrote on Twitterwhich adds that in the south temperatures above the symbolic bar of 100 ° Fahrenheit (more than 37 ° C) will remain at least until Thursday.
“Scientists have been predicting these extraordinary and catastrophic events for decades,” said former US Vice President Al Gore, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his commitment to climate change.
“Today they say that if we don’t stop using our atmosphere as a garbage dump, and if we don’t stop these emissions (of greenhouse gases) that trap heat, things are going to get worse. More people will die and the survival of our civilization,” he added.
Source: BFM TV
