For the past fortnight, California has been experiencing the largest wildfire in its recent history.
Gigantic flames; a hill transformed into a vast inferno. For more than ten days, firefighters have been battling relentlessly against the blaze ravaging California (United States), sometimes to no avail. Residential neighbourhoods have been evacuated and hundreds of homes have been reduced to ashes. Fire whirls are being fanned by violent gusts of wind.
Around Mendocino, north of San Francisco, 115,000 hectares have been burnt, more than ten times the area of Paris.
The fire is spreading so rapidly that it is on the verge of merging with the blaze in Redding, further north, which began two weeks ago. Together, these two fires constitute the largest wildfire disaster in California’s recent history.
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14,000 firefighters:
More than 14,000 firefighters are battling the various wildfires currently raging across the state of California. Several thousand people have been evacuated since this series of fires began. Some have been allowed to return home in recent days.
These fires are “extremely fast, extremely aggressive, extremely dangerous”, said Scott McLean, a deputy chief at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“Look how huge it has become, in just a few days (…). Look how quickly this Mendocino Complex fire has risen up the rankings of major wildfires,” Mr McLean emphasised.
‘The new normal, which we will have to learn to live with’
“The fire season has only just begun. It feels as though we’re at the peak of the season, when in fact this is the situation we’re facing at the start of the season,” he said. California’s Governor, Jerry Brown, visited some of the sites engulfed by flames on Saturday and said, “This is part of a trend that is set to become the new normal, something we will have to learn to live with.”
Photos:
NOAH BERGER / AFP
