Dubbed the “Oak Fire,” the fire broke out near the small town of Midpines on Friday and had already covered around 15,000 acres of vegetation, according to the latest report.
More than 2,500 firefighters, supported by 17 helicopters, were still battling blazes last night from an “explosive” blaze that was still spreading “very quickly” in central California’s forested hills near famed Yosemite National Park.
Already the biggest California wildfire of the season, “it’s moving very fast and the response window to evacuate people is limited,” said Jon Heggie, a California firefighter executive, on the CNN channel. According to the expert, the speed of propagation and the behavior of this fire are “truly unprecedented”.
“The flames were up to 30 meters high,” David Lee, an evacuee, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper. The 55-year-old was among the first people to be evacuated on Friday and believes his home was caught in the fire. “He was straight at us. This fire is by far the fastest I’ve seen,” the resident added.
The ‘Oak Fire’ was only 10% contained as of Monday July 25 after a dozen buildings were destroyed, but emergency services fear that number is rising quickly.
\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 USA: Megafire season has opened in California and Oak Fire is ravaging Yosemite Forest. pic.twitter.com/adz0MVZeAx
— Telesud (@Telesud_) July 25, 2022
The fire threatens several thousand homes in small rural towns in Mariposa County in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where several thousand people were under evacuation orders. Dubbed the “megafire” by Jon Heggie, it’s being fueled in particular by dead trees and withered bushes in a region plagued by chronic drought like most of California.
“This is a direct consequence of climate change,” said the fire chief. “You can’t have 10 years of drought in California and expect things to stay the same.”
Chronic drought and heat waves
Jonathan Pierce, a fire department spokesman, said low humidity and high temperatures fueled the fire. “We also have high tree mortality in Mariposa County, so a lot of dead trees are standing, a lot of dead trees are on the ground,” he added. Around 3,000 people have been evacuated so far, officials said.
Yosemite Park, one of the most famous in the world, suffered a fire in mid-July, with flames threatening its giant sequoias. These trees have generally survived for a few millennia, thanks in particular to controlled fires that were burned in these groves for decades to reduce fuel on the ground.
\ud83d\udd25\ud83c\udf32California continues to battle blazes that authorities say are out of control. Almost 6,000 hectares were devastated and thousands of people evacuated. The oak fire is now threatening Yosemite National Park’s thousand-year-old redwoods. pic.twitter.com/0ZuGZzSF0u
— TV5MONDE Info (@TV5MONDEINFO) July 25, 2022
The American west has already experienced wildfires of exceptional magnitude and intensity in recent years, with a very significant lengthening of the fire season, a phenomenon that scientists attribute primarily to climate change.
The Oak Fire is one of the most dramatic manifestations of the heat wave that hit the United States this past weekend. In the central United States (Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas), temperatures above 37°C were forecast at the beginning of the week, and the north-west coast of the country, which was generally cool and very humid, was not spared.
The weather services have therefore issued a heat alert in Seattle this week and could break records there this Tuesday, July 26th. The city is so unfamiliar that many homes lack air conditioning, a rarity in the United States.
The region experienced a historic heat peak in June 2021, when temperatures reached 47°C in locations in the northwestern United States and neighboring Canada. Authorities estimate that hundreds of people have died due to this unprecedented heatwave in the region.