The two biggest fires out of the dozen or so fires burning in the state are the Valley fire and the Rough fire, and they are still gaining on the 5,000 or more firefighters working to contain them.
The Valley fire, about 100 miles north of San Francisco, has grown to 61,000 acres, according to Cal Fire as of this morning. A Cal Fire battalion chief told ABC News on Sunday evening the Valley fire has forced about 20,000 people to be evacuated and destroyed over 1,000 homes or businesses.
Meanwhile, USA Today is reporting the Butte fire in Amador and Calaveras counties is now 30 percent contained, having burned over 71,000 acres, and destroyed 86 homes and 51 outbuildings. Brian O’Hara of the National Weather Service has already warned Cal Fire officials that winds are expected to pick up on Tuesday. While the winds will help to dissipate the smoke, there is always the danger of them sparking up further blazes.
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Daniel Berlant said that as of Sunday afternoon, over 20,000 people had been forced from their homes and an additional 9,000 structures were threatened. The Rough fire is particularly dangerous, having burned over 203 square miles as of Sunday. It is the largest wildfire in the state’s history.
While California is no stranger to wildfires, Mark Ghilarducci, the director of the governor’s Office of Emergency Services said this summer’s fires are the most volatile he has seen in the past 30 years of emergency response service, reports RT News.The spreading wildfires have caused Governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency in many counties affected by the fires.
“The bushes, the trees have absolutely no moisture in them, and the humidities are so low that we are seeing these ‘fire starts’ just erupt into conflagrations,” Ghilarducci said
Scenes of post-apocalyptic destruction
Now that a few areas have cooled enough for people to get a first-hand view of the destruction, ABC News is saying what is left looks almost like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. All that is left of homes in the town of Middleton, California is charred ash, with a few kitchen appliances standing as ghostly reminders of what was once there.
Cars and trucks left behind as families fled the conflagration are nothing more than skeletons sitting in hardening pools of rubber and melted metals. The landscape is frightening in its total devastation, proof of the destructive force of fire.
If someone has never lived on the west coast, they can never fully appreciate what a wildfire fire can do. For those of us who live in California now, or have at one time lived there in the past, the threat of wildfires is forever indelibly printed in our memories, the harsh smell of smoke, the rush to save what we can when forced to leave our homes, and the silent prayers that we will have something left when we return.
