Ferri i flakëve në Kaliforni/ Evakuohen rreth 4000 njerëz nga shtëpitë e tyre

2024-07-27 12:36:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Ferri i flakëve në Kaliforni/ Evakuohen rreth 4000 njerëz nga

California

About 4,000 people have been forced from their homes in California by a wildfire that continued to grow alarmingly despite the intervention of 1,700 firefighters, causing concern for authorities.

Since landfall on Wednesday in northern California, more than 720 square kilometers of forest and 134 buildings have burned. Meanwhile, according to the CalFire Service of Forestry and Fire Protection in California, as of yesterday the fire remains uncontrolled.

The fire is spreading rapidly in a rural area three hours' drive northeast of San Francisco.

The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has announced last night, the state of emergency in two counties that are threatened by the flames, in order to speed up the actions of the authorities.

The fire forced about 4,000 people from their homes in the villages of Cohasset and Forest Ranges after it broke out in the small town of Chico.

This massive fire is bringing back bad memories: a part of the city of Paradise, where 85 people died in 2018 in the deadliest fire in California history, is on alert and residents should be prepared for any eventuality.

Ferri i flakëve në Kaliforni/ Evakuohen rreth 4000 njerëz nga

You should be ready to go, Bute County Sheriff Cory Honia said Thursday. "If the fire spreads, I cannot promise or guarantee that we will be able to save your life."

"It is a changing situation", he emphasized yesterday in his new statements, indicating that the fire has "passed" the village of Cohasset during the night.

Residents who escaped the flames described to local media their frantic escape through the only accessible forest road in the area, with their car headlights unable to illuminate the road due to thick smoke.

"It was very disturbing to know that this was the only way to escape," Nico Shelton told the Sacramento Bee.

"I feel like I'm paralyzed," Julia Yarbough, whose home was gutted by the flames, told CBS.

According to authorities, the fire is intentional. A 42-year-old man was arrested Thursday morning after he was seen pushing "a car that had caught fire in a canyon," according to the local prosecutor's office.

Ferri i flakëve në Kaliforni/ Evakuohen rreth 4000 njerëz nga

The suspect was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2003. His criminal record includes sexual assault of a minor and armed robbery.

As for the front of the fire, reinforcements were sent to many parts of California, while the weather service issued a warning for yesterday, due to strong winds that carried the risk of the fire spreading.

"We're seeing extreme northward extension" of the fire, Billy Shea, the fire chief, explained yesterday.

Firefighters focus most of their resources on protecting residential areas.

"We are hoping that the weather conditions will improve significantly from this weekend with cooler temperatures and an increase in humidity, which will allow us to have easier access to the perimeter (of the fire) rather than staying on the defensive, he noted.

"It's really the first fire in years in California that I would say is behaving out of the ordinary, and that's not a good thing," UCLA extreme weather expert Daniel Swain said Thursday night.

Swain compared this large fire to those that burned across California in the 2010s, which were among the worst in the history of this western American state.

Ferri i flakëve në Kaliforni/ Evakuohen rreth 4000 njerëz nga

"The only good news is that there are no major cities in the direct path of the fire," he added, judging that the fire could continue to rage "for weeks, even months."

After two wet winters, the western US has experienced several heat waves since June, which dry out new vegetation from rains and favor the spread of wildfires.

"We broke (temperature) records and this happened in a very large area, which stretches from the northwest of Mexico to the west of Canada," the expert noted.

Hundreds of fires are still burning across this area, particularly in Oregon in the US and Canada.

Recurring heat waves are an indicator of global warming linked to climate change caused by humanity's reliance on fossil fuels, scientists say./CNA