Wildfires continued their explosive spread along the West Coast on Thursday, scorching entire neighborhoods and forcing mass evacuations across California, Oregon and Washington State as a record-breaking fire season continued.
On Thursday, firefighters continued their efforts to contain fires that had caused extensive damage and killed at least seven people. In California, hundreds of fires blazed across the state, including in the Mendocino National Forest in Northern California and Fresno in the central part of the state, as well as areas near Los Angeles and in Silicon Valley. Because of the extraordinary number of fires, California’s forces have been stretched, preventing them from sending firefighters to Oregon, where multiple fires, including the Almeda Fire, have caused extensive damage.
Officials said hundreds of homes had been consumed by flames and aerial images of towns like Talent and Medford, Ore., showed streets lined with homes that were charred, if not destroyed.
The authorities, facing fires that have burned a record 2.5 million acres in California and hundreds of thousands more in Oregon and Washington State, pleaded for federal help and the public’s cooperation in stark terms. Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon on Wednesday requested a federal emergency declaration, and warned of potential damage that emergency crews expected to find in the debris.
