WASHINGTON: The death toll from wildfires that have ravaged the US’ West Coast has risen to 35 as the National Weather Service issued a “red flag warning” amid high winds and dry conditions in Oregon and some California counties.
Authorities said the conditions are expected to “contribute to a significant spread of new and existing fires”, amid days of blazes across California, Oregon and Washington that have destroyed neighbourhoods and forest land.
Officials have said more people are missing from other blazes and the number of fatalities is likely to rise. Twenty-two people have died in California since early August and one person has been killed in Washington state.
On Sunday, search and rescue teams, with dogs in tow, were deployed across the blackened ruins of southern Oregon towns.
At least 35 active fires were burning in the state, as drought conditions, extreme temperatures, and high winds created the “perfect firestorm” for the blazes to grow, Governor Kate Brown told CBS News on Sunday.
Headway
After four days of brutally hot, windy weather, the weekend brought calmer winds blowing inland from the Pacific Ocean and cooler, moister conditions that helped crews make headway against blazes that had burned unchecked earlier in the week.
Still, emergency officials worried that the shifting weather might not be enough to quell the fires.
“We’re concerned that the incoming front is not going to provide a lot of rain here in the Medford region and it’s going to bring increased winds,” Bureau of Land Management spokesman Kyle Sullivan told Reuters news agency.
California wildfires
In California, nearly 17,000 firefighters were battling 29 major wildfires, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Improving weather conditions had helped them gain a measure of containment over most of the blazes.
More than 4,000 homes and other structures have been incinerated in the state alone over the past three weeks. Three million acres have been burned in the state, according to Cal Fire.
The heavy smoke that has painted California skies orange has also helped fire crews corral the state’s deadliest blaze this year by blocking the sun, reducing temperatures and raising humidity.