Fire officials said the fire through Middletown and Cobb, dubbed Valley Fire, in northern California on the U.S. west coast, was among the most destructive as it spread rapidly and chased thousands of residents from their homes in and around those communities.
California governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in areas hit by the blaze.
Reports said the Valley Fire has consumed more than 40,000 acres since erupting Saturday afternoon in rural Lake County, while another fire, known as Butte Fire, was partly contained.
Daniel Berlant, public information officer for the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire, was quoted as saying that "this (Valley Fire) is one of those fires that has been so fast moving."
Four firefighters were hospitalized with second-degree burns after they were dropped off by helicopter to battle the fire, north of San Francisco.
Hot weather and drought conditions apparently worsened the situation.
On Friday, some 3,500 more people were evacuated from another blaze, dubbed the Rough Fire, which is burning in Kings Canyon National Park in central California.
Xinhua - china.org.cn
14/9/15
--
-
Related:
At least 400 homes and hundreds of other buildings have gone up in flames and one person has been killed in a Northern California wildfire that ranks as the most destructive this summer in the U.S. West, officials said on Monday...
ReplyDeleteA spokesman for the Lake County Sheriff's Office, Lieutenant Steve Brooks, confirmed the fire fatality but provided no details about the victim's identity or the circumstances of the death.
The so-called Valley Fire, which erupted Saturday afternoon and spread quickly to a cluster of small communities in the hills and valleys north of the Napa Valley wine country, has forced thousands of residents from their homes in the area.
By Monday morning the blaze had devoured about 61,000 acres (24,690 hectares) of tinder-dry forests, brush and grasslands, and was only about 5 percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
About 40,000 acres (16,190 hectares) of the landscape - parched by drought and last week's severe heat wave - were consumed in the first 12 hours of the fire at the peak of its intensity on Saturday and early Sunday, driven by high winds.
Fire officials called the rate of spread unprecedented.......Reuters......ahram.org.eg
14/9/15