The governors of California and Oregon delivered blunt and alarming details Friday about the massive wildfires that have consumed millions of acres across their two states and Washington, killing at least 15 people. State leaders also braced for that death toll to increase, with an Oregon official saying the state was preparing for a “mass fatality incident.”
Oregon, Washington and California are enduring a wildfire season of historic proportions, with the firefighting effort compounded by the coronavirus pandemic and misinformation online.
But as residents readied themselves for more pain, they also looked to the skies and hoped that changing weather might help them this weekend in their fight. Doug Grafe, chief of fire protection for the Oregon Department of Forestry, said that the strong winds that had spread the fires had dissipated and that cooler temperatures and higher humidity would help fire crews move “from just life safety to the offense” in fighting the blazes.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California also noted the dying winds and said that a “modest amount” of precipitation could be on the way in his state.
In her news conference, Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon noted that well over 1 million acres — over 1,500 square miles — had been burned in the state and that the state’s air quality ranks the worst in the world. “Almost anywhere in the state you can feel this right now,” she said.
More than 40,000 Oregonians have already been evacuated, and about 500,000 are in zones that may be evacuated as the fires continue to grow. Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland declared a state of emergency Thursday night, and residents of Molalla, about 30 miles to the south, packed highways as they fled from the approaching fires.
But tragedy has already befallen some, with towns like Talent and Phoenix all but obliterated. Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, said Friday that mass casualties were a possibility “based on what we know and the numbers of structures that have been lost.”
In California, where more than 3 million acres have burned, Newsom held a surreal livestreamed news conference, speaking among charred trees in the midst of a yellowish, smoky haze left by the raging North Complex fires.
To his west, the August Complex fire — which this week became the largest in the state’s history — had now burned across 747,000 acres, Newsom said.
Ten people have died in the most recent California fires, and Newsom said he feared that more bodies would be found. He emphasized the unprecedented scale of the challenges facing firefighters, who have been strained by enormous blazes up and down the coast.
“It’s just something we’ve never seen in our lifetime,” he said.
Newsom said he spoke with President Donald Trump for about a half an hour Thursday about the fires and said the president “enforced his commitment” to sending aid for both businesses and individuals.
While the governor acknowledged that poor forest management over decades had contributed to the severity of wildfires, he said that mega-droughts and record heat waves are evidence that the most dire predictions about climate change have already arrived.
While California, he said, was investing in green technology and regulating vehicle emissions, the fires ravaging the entire West Coast were a grim preview of what the rest of the country may soon face if policies and priorities did not change nationally.
“California is America in fast forward,” he said. “What we’re experiencing right now is coming to communities all across the country.”
