Officials say the Oak Fire, the most destructive blaze so far this fire season in California, is 10 percent contained.
Posted on July 25, 2022 July 25, 2022
Firefighters have begun to slow the spread of California’s largest wildfire so far this year, after the Oak Fire threatened famed Yosemite National Park and forced thousands of residents to evacuate their communities.
The massive blaze expanded rapidly since it began Friday, overwhelming the initial deployment of firefighters as scorching, dry weather fueled its galloping pace through dry forest and undergrowth.
Several California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) officials said the fire initially behaved like any other they had seen, with burning embers sparking smaller fires up to 3 km (2 miles) across. in front of the main conflagration.
But firefighters have seen no more of that so-called detection, Cal Fire spokeswoman Natasha Fouts said Monday from the incident command center in Merced, about 210 km (130 miles) inland from San Francisco.
The absence of other major fires in the region allowed Cal Fire to focus 2,500 firefighters on the blaze, and the lack of wind allowed for the continued use of aircraft to drop water and fire retardant, officials said .
“We’ve concentrated all of our crews across the state here. So if there’s a silver lining, it’s that we’re throwing everything at this fire right now,” Cal Fire spokesman Joseph Amador told Al Jazeera.
The Oak Fire has consumed 6,795 hectares (16,791 acres) and is 10 percent contained, Cal Fire said Monday.
It is the most destructive fire so far this fire season, destroying more than three times the area of the nearby Washburn fire, which is nearly 90 percent contained. But it pales in comparison to last year’s Dixie Fire, which burned nearly 405,000 hectares (1 million acres).
“What we’re seeing in this [Oak Fire] is very indicative of what we’ve seen in fires across California, in the West over the last couple of years,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Jon Heggie told CNN.
“These fires burn with such speed and intensity that they make it extremely difficult and extremely dangerous for both the public and firefighters,” Heggie said.
“It’s moving so quickly that it doesn’t give people much time, and sometimes they’ll have to evacuate with just the shirts on their backs,” he said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Mariposa County on Saturday, citing “extremely dangerous conditions for the safety of people and property.”
In recent years, California and other parts of the western United States have been ravaged by huge and fast-moving wildfires, fueled by years of drought and a warming climate.
Experts have said that climate change is causing heat waves, drought and other extreme weather conditions around the world. Virtually all parts of the United States have experienced above-normal temperatures over the past week, and more dangerous weather is expected.
“Whatever it is, the conditions seem to be getting worse every year,” Amador told Al Jazeera’s Cal Fire. “And every year we talk about record years and here we are again. But we are up to it and will continue to do our best.”
In California, more than 6,000 people living in the sparsely populated Oak Fire area in the Sierra Nevada foothills were evacuated on Monday, although a handful of residents defied the orders and stayed behind, Adrienne said Freeman, a spokesman for the US Forest Service.
“We urge people to evacuate when told to,” he said.
Lynda Reynolds-Brown and her husband, Aubrey, waited for news about the fate of their home from an evacuation center at an elementary school. They fled as ash rained down and the fire raced down a hill toward their property.
“It looked like it was over our house and it was coming really fast,” Reynolds-Brown told KCRA-TV.
High temperatures in the area on Monday were expected to reach 37C (98F) with a light breeze throughout the day. A 20 percent chance of thunderstorms was forecast for Monday night and Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service said, but otherwise the area could expect similarly hot weather for much of the week.