California battles hundreds of wildfires on top of Covid-19
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San Francisco/Los Angeles — Californians are in their sixth month of sheltering in place because of a pandemic that’s killed more than 11,000 residents. Now a new crisis is forcing people to prepare to flee their homes at a moment’s notice — hundreds of wildfires.
“This really is unprecedented,” said Bela Matyas, health officer of Northern California’s Solano County, where thousands of residents of Vacaville were forced to evacuate as fires crept towards the city. “We need people ideally to be able to stay in their homes and not be socialising with people, not be congregating.”
In a state known for its disasters, multiple crises are converging at once. After a summer of soaring coronavirus cases and scaled-back reopenings, Californians have been gripped by record-setting heat that strained its power grid and led to rolling blackouts for the first time since the 2000-2001 energy crisis. Then came wildfires, many of them caused by lightning strikes in the extreme weather.
Vacaville is only one of the cities with evacuations. Thousands of residents in Napa and Sonoma counties north of San Francisco, and Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties to the south, have had to leave their homes as fires tear through the region. Smoke has blanketed the Bay Area, with San Franciscans finding cars covered in ash and a city that smelt like a camp fire. Near Los Angeles, a blaze known as the Lake Fire has burnt nearly 26,000 acres since last week.
By Wednesday afternoon, there were 367 known fires burning in the state, governor Gavin Newsom said at a press briefing. Of those, 23 were known as complex fires.
“We are experiencing fires the likes of which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” Newsom said.
The state did get some good news over the past few days as it was spared from more of the rolling blackouts, and cooler weather is expected on Thursday. Still, California faces a “risk of resource insufficiency,” on August 24, according to a letter to Newsom sent by agencies including the power grid operator.
While heatwaves, wildfires and blackouts are nothing new for California, all of that going on during a pandemic is uncharted territory. Huddling fire-evacuees and those looking for relief from the heat and power outages isn’t a great option in the age of Covid-19.
In Solano County — home of the first confirmed US coronavirus infection from community spread ...
“This really is unprecedented,” said Bela Matyas, health officer of Northern California’s Solano County, where thousands of residents of Vacaville were forced to evacuate as fires crept towards the city. “We need people ideally to be able to stay in their homes and not be socialising with people, not be congregating.”
In a state known for its disasters, multiple crises are converging at once. After a summer of soaring coronavirus cases and scaled-back reopenings, Californians have been gripped by record-setting heat that strained its power grid and led to rolling blackouts for the first time since the 2000-2001 energy crisis. Then came wildfires, many of them caused by lightning strikes in the extreme weather.
Vacaville is only one of the cities with evacuations. Thousands of residents in Napa and Sonoma counties north of San Francisco, and Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties to the south, have had to leave their homes as fires tear through the region. Smoke has blanketed the Bay Area, with San Franciscans finding cars covered in ash and a city that smelt like a camp fire. Near Los Angeles, a blaze known as the Lake Fire has burnt nearly 26,000 acres since last week.
By Wednesday afternoon, there were 367 known fires burning in the state, governor Gavin Newsom said at a press briefing. Of those, 23 were known as complex fires.
“We are experiencing fires the likes of which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” Newsom said.
The state did get some good news over the past few days as it was spared from more of the rolling blackouts, and cooler weather is expected on Thursday. Still, California faces a “risk of resource insufficiency,” on August 24, according to a letter to Newsom sent by agencies including the power grid operator.
While heatwaves, wildfires and blackouts are nothing new for California, all of that going on during a pandemic is uncharted territory. Huddling fire-evacuees and those looking for relief from the heat and power outages isn’t a great option in the age of Covid-19.
In Solano County — home of the first confirmed US coronavirus infection from community spread ...
