PORTLAND: Dozens of extreme, wind-driven wildfires burned through forests and towns in US West Coast states on Thursday, destroying hundreds of homes, killing at least nine people and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee.
Four people died from fires in California, while four were killed in Oregon and a one-year-old boy died in Washington state, police reported.
The number of people under evacuation orders in Oregon alone climbed late in the day to some 500,000, an eighth of the state’s total population, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Emergency Management said.
Thousands more were displaced north and south in the neighbouring states of Washington and California.
Oregon has borne the brunt of nearly 100 major wildfires raging across the western US this week. Around 3,000 firefighters have been battling nearly three dozen blazes in Oregon, and fire officials saying about twice as many personnel are needed to bring those conflagrations under control.
Criminal investigation
Police have opened a criminal arson investigation into at least one Oregon blaze – the Almeda Fire – which started in Ashland near the border with California and incinerated several hundred homes in adjacent communities along Bear Creek, Ashland Police Chief Tighe O’Meara said.
O’Meara said he expected the death toll from the Almeda Fire, initially blamed for two of Oregon’s fatalities, to rise as search teams combed through the ruins of dwellings that burned in the midst of a chaotic evacuation.