A vehicle drives past the spreading River Fire on July 25, near Myrtle, Idaho, before U.S. Highway 12 was closed. Lightning strikes have sparked fast-moving wildfires in Idaho, prompting the evacuation of multiple communities.August Frank/The Associated Press
Communities in the U.S. West and Canada were under siege from raging wildfires on Friday, as a fast-moving blaze sparked by lightning sent people fleeing on fire-ringed roads in rural Idaho and a human-caused inferno forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes in northern California.
In eastern Oregon, a pilot was found dead in a small air tanker plane that crashed while fighting one of the many wildfires spreading across several Western states.
More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometres) were burning in the U.S. on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some were caused by the weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures record heat and bone-dry conditions.
Late Friday, a new wildfire blew up in Eastern Washington that threatened homes, the railroad, Interstate 90 and the community of Tyler, which was evacuated. The Columbia Basin fire in Spokane County closed part of Highway 904 between the interstate and Cheney, Washington. Multiple planes, helicopters and fire personnel were working hard to contain the fire, according to the Washington State Patrol.
Others were human-caused, like the Park Fire burning in Butte County, California, just northwest of the community of Paradise where the 2018 Camp Fire killed 85 people and incinerated thousands of homes.
Carli Parker is one of hundreds who fled their homes this week as the Park Fire pushed close. Parker decided to leave with her Forest Ranch residence with her family when the fire began burning across the street. She has previously been forced out of two homes by fire, and she said she had little hope that her residence would remain unscathed.
“I think I felt like I was in danger because the police had come to our house because we had signed up for early evacuation warnings, and they were running to their vehicle after telling us that we need to self-evacuate and they wouldn’t come back,” said Parker, a mother of five.
More than 130 structures have been destroyed by the fire, and thousands more remain threatened. The state’s largest active wildfire began Wednesday when a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then calmly blended in with others fleeing the scene, authorities said.
Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, of Chico, was arrested early Thursday and held without bail pending a Monday arraignment, officials said. There was no reply to an e-mail to the district attorney asking whether the suspect had legal representation or someone who could comment on his behalf.
By midday Friday, the fire had burned more than 278 square miles (720 square kilometres) across the Sierra Nevada foothills above the city of 100,000. It remained completely uncontained.
Fire crews were making progress on another complex of fires burning in the Plumas National Forest near the California-Nevada line, said Forest Service spokesperson Adrienne Freeman. About 1,000 people had been displaced Thursday by the lightning-sparked Gold Complex fires, but some evacuations were lifted Friday when the 5-square-mile (12-square-kilometre) fire was about 11% contained. Fire managers pulled about 200 of the firefighters off the line at the Gold Complex so they could aid efforts on the Park Fire near Chico.
Forest Ranch evacuee Sherry Alpers, fled with her 12 small dogs and made the decision to stay in her car outside a Red Cross shelter in Chico after learning that animals would not be allowed inside. She ruled out travelling to another shelter after learning the dogs would be kept in cages, since her dogs have always roamed free at her home.
Alpers said she doesn’t know whether the fire spared her home or not, but she said that as long as her dogs are safe, she doesn’t care about the material things.
“I’m kind of worried, but not that much,” she said. “If it’s gone, it’s gone.”
Brian Bowles was also staying in his car outside the shelter with his dog Diamon. He said he doesn’t know if his mobile home is still standing.
Bowles said he only has a $100 gift card he received from United Way, which handed them out to evacuees.
“Now the question is, do I get a motel room and comfortable for one night? Or do I put gas in the car and sleep in here?” he said. “Tough choice.”
In Oregon, a Grant County Search and Rescue team on Friday morning located a small single-engine air tanker that had disappeared while fighting the 219-square-mile (567 square kilometres) Falls Fire burning near the town of Seneca and the Malheur National Forest. The pilot died, said Bureau of Land Management information officer Lisa Clark. No one else was aboard the bureau-contracted aircraft when it went down in steep, forested terrain.
The most damage so far has been to the Canadian Rockies’ Jasper National Park, where a fast-moving wildfire forced 25,000 people to flee and devastated the park’s namesake town, a World Heritage site.
In Idaho, lightning strikes sparked fast-moving wildfires and the evacuation of multiple communities, including one where a man drove past a building and trees engulfed in flames as a tunnel of smoke rose over the roadway.
Videos posted to social media include a man who said he heard explosions as he fled Juliaetta, about 27 miles (43 kilometres) southeast of the University of Idaho’s campus in Moscow. The town of just over 600 residents was evacuated Thursday just ahead of roaring fires, as were several other communities near the Clearwater River and the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery Complex, which breeds salmon. The fires were burning on about 31 square miles (80.3 square kilometres) Friday afternoon.
There’s no estimate yet on the number of buildings burned in Idaho, nor is there information about damage to urban communities, Johnson said Friday morning.
Oregon still has the biggest active blaze in the United States, the Durkee Fire, which combined with the Cow Fire to burn nearly 630 square miles (1,630 square kilometres). It remains unpredictable and was only 20% contained Friday, according to the government website InciWeb.
The National Interagency Fire Center said more than 27,000 fires have burned more than 5,800 square miles (15,000 square kilometres) in the U.S. this year, and in Canada, more than 8,000 square miles (22,800 square kilometres) have burned in more than 3,700 fires so far, according to its National Wildland Fire Situation Report issued Wednesday.