The wildfires engulfing the West Coast have become so dire in Oregon that state police have established a new type of emergency response: a mobile morgue. The state-run facility in Linn County, about two hours outside of Portland, will be operated by a 75-member regional response team that is searching incinerated properties for survivors and victims. While the wildfires have hit 10 states across the country, Oregon has been among the worst affected, with more than 30 active fires, at least 900,000 acres burned, eight deaths, and at least 50 people missing. More than 10 percent of the state’s population has […]
California; wildfires
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As of Sunday afternoon, there were only about 20 buildings still standing in the city of Detroit, Oregon. The wildfires raging along the West Coast hit the small, rural enclave three hours outside of Portland over the weekend, burning a majority of the community’s structures—including City Hall, where the fire department’s office is based. Locals have suggested the destruction was as if “a bomb went off.” “We have approximately 20-25 structures still standing, and the rest are gone,” the Idanha-Detroit Rural Fire Protection District said on their Facebook page, noting that several firefighters currently on the frontlines of these massive blazes […]
PORTLAND—When Lucy Francisco of Medford, Oregon, learned that the Almeda fire had burned through two small towns and was racing toward her city, she didn’t wait to be evacuated. She knew what to pack. She had a list on her phone, which she’d gone through again and again over the years. She and her husband grabbed their two young children, jumped in the car, and headed north. “It was so smoky, I was literally crying, so scared we were driving into another fire,” Francisco told The Daily Beast. They were: Fires outside of Eugene were blocking their path. So they pivoted […]
I didn’t want to say it. Having grown up in the South, I am cursed with the kind of conciliatory attitude that can make asking things like “So, were you aware that your trend-launching gender-reveal cake was kind of lame?” exceedingly difficult. Thankfully Jenna Karvunidis, the so-called “inventor” of the gender-reveal party, said it for me. “It is ugly!” Karvunidis said during a phone interview of her two-layer Duncan Hines confection with pink frosting in the center—which pales in comparison to the oh-so-perfect towering tortes of today’s gender-reveal celebrations. “I made a duck and it’s just like, oh my God. Now […]
On Friday morning, days after wildfires overtook Butte County, California, relatives of 49-year-old Kelly Burke were frantically searching for her and spreading the word that she was missing on social media. One neighbor in the woods near her town, Berry Creek, claimed to see Burke evacuate with friends, but no one could reach her. “Living in Idaho and not being able to search for mom is killing me,” Burke’s daughter Chelsea Vonarmfelt wrote on Facebook. The next morning, Vonarmfelt began a long drive from Boise, intent on finding Burke, who’d vanished after the North Complex fire leveled her rural community of […]
When he couldn’t reach his cousin Jake Hyland on Monday, Jim Mabry drove to his family’s remote property in rural Washington state, where wildfires turned pastures of 4-foot-high sage into dust. Jake and his wife, Jamie, along with their 1-year-old son, Uriel, were visiting their land in Okanogan County when flames from the Cold Springs Fire ripped through the area. Relatives couldn’t reach the couple, or emergency services, because power lines were down. On Tuesday, Mabry discovered Jake’s truck stuck in a ravine, about a quarter of a mile from the land. The vehicle had blown through a barbed wire fence. […]
The West Coast of the United States awoke Wednesday morning to a dark orange sky as wildfire smoke enshrouded wide swaths of the region in darkness and sent ash raining from the sky. Dozens of gargantuan fires are burning in California, Washington, Oregon, and Colorado. Blazes in Oregon surpassed 330,000 acres. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed and tens of thousands of people evacuated. “We expect to see a great deal of loss, both in structures and in human lives,” said Oregon Gov. Kate Brown. “This could be the greatest loss of human lives and property due to wildfire in our […]
Military helicopters rescued dozens of people—some of them burned—who were trapped by a northern California wildfire that devoured 36,000 acres in one day. More than 150 people were stranded Saturday around the Mammoth Pool Reservoir in the Sierra National Forest, where the Creek Fire continued to rage out of control. “We’re in the truck. The air is so black, we can’t open our eyes without it burning,” Allyson Chance, 14, and her sister, Lily, 16, texted their stepmother as they waited to be rescued, local TV station KMPH reported. Campers were told to shelter in place and wait for help—and to […]
BROOKS, CA—By Friday evening, northern California’s LNU Lightning Complex fire had become the second-largest wildfire in state history, killing at least five people, destroying 500 structures, and forcing evacuations in two cities and an Air Force base. It was just 15 percent contained. But up in rural Capay Valley, as the historic blaze crept within two miles of Cache Creek Casino Resort and the sun blazed orange behind blooms of smoke, hundreds of gamblers shirked both fire and the coronavirus pandemic to enjoy a night working the slots and trying their luck at the tables. “These fires are going to continue […]
Thousands of California residents were under evacuation orders Wednesday as dozens of wildfires continued to tear through the state, sparked by lightning storms and an unrelenting heatwave. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were about 367 fires raging across California—23 of them considered major blazes—Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a press briefing. After more than 100,000 residents were ordered to flee their homes in one northern California city, Newsom has declared a state of emergency and called on the California National Guard to help with relief efforts. “This fire season has been very active,” Newsom said, calling Wednesday “another challenging day.” He […]
Tens of thousands of Californians were recently forced to flee their homes in the North Bay area as a result of intensifying wildfires spreading across the state. During a Wednesday news conference, California Governor Gavin Newsom revealed that there are more than 360 known fires currently burning in California. The state is experiencing record heat levels and has seen more than 10,000 lightning strikes in the last 72 hours. “We’re quite familiar with these challenges. But there’s no question, while last year we experienced some acuity of fires, the total number of fires was substantially lower than what we’re experiencing this […]