US wildfires fuelled by climate change,
California governor says
12
September 2020
Mr Newsom
spoke after surveying damage from one of the deadliest fire in California's
history
The deadly
wildfires sweeping through US West Coast states show that the debate around
climate change is "over", California Governor Gavin Newsom says.
"Just
come to the state of California. Observe it with your own eyes," he told
reporters from a charred mountainside.
Fires have
been raging in California, Oregon and Washington for three weeks.
Fanned by
winds amid record heat, the blazes have burnt millions of acres, destroyed
thousands of homes, and killed at least 25 people.
On Friday
Oregon Governor Kate Brown said dozens were missing in her state alone.
The fires
have burnt a total 4.5m acres - an area larger than Connecticut and slightly
smaller than Wales - in recent weeks, according to the National Interagency
Fire Center.
The
governor, a Democrat, spoke on Friday as he inspected damage from the North
Complex Fire, near Oroville in Northern California.
"The
debate is over, around climate change," Mr Newsom told reporters.
"This is a climate damn emergency. This is real and it's happening."
He
acknowledged failings in forest management in recent decades, but added:
"That's one point, but it's not the point."
Highlighting
the states effort to combat climate change, he said the record heat waves and
unprecedented fires were the sort of problems long forecast by scientists.
President
Donald Trump, a climate sceptic, has stressed poor fire-control measures as the
main cause of the latest blazes.
"You've
got to clean your forests - there are many, many years of leaves and broken
trees and they're... so flammable," he told a rally last month.
The North
Complex Fire, which has been burning since 18 August, is among the deadliest in
history. Ten bodies have been found so far and another 16 people are missing.
California
has seen at least 20 deaths in total from fires since 15 August. Tens of
thousands of people are under evacuation orders as 14,800 firefighters continue
to combat 28 major fires in the state.
Disasters
foretold
While
natural factors such as strong winds have helped the spread of these massive
fires, the underlying heating of the climate from human activities is making
these conflagrations bigger and more explosive.
Nine of the
world's 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2005, and the UN warned
this week that the five years from 2016 until this year will very likely be the
hottest such period yet recorded. Both Oregon and California have warmed by
more than 1C since 1900.
The
sustained warmth has seen six of the 20 largest fires on record in California
all occur this year. In Oregon, the spate of fires has burned nearly twice the
average annual losses in just the past week.
In
California, a prolonged drought over the past decade has killed millions of
trees, turning them into potent fuel for the fires. Mountain regions that are
normally cooler and wetter have dried out more rapidly in the summer, adding to
the potential fuel load.
Climate
scientists had forecast that western wildfires would grow in size, scale and
impact - but their predictions are coming to fruition faster than expected.
In Oregon,
where firefighters are battling 16 large blazes, 40,000 people are under
mandatory evacuation orders.
The fires
have killed four people but officials warn the death could be much higher.
Governor
Kate Brown on Friday implored householders to stay out of the fire zones
despite reports of looting.
"Let
me assure you that we have the Oregon National Guard and Oregon State Police
monitoring the situation and preventing looting," she said.
Media
captionDrone footage shows homes completely wiped out by wildfires
Beatriz
Gomez Bolanos, 41, told Reuters news agency of her family's frightening drive
to safety through fires burning on both sides of their car. She told her four
children to close their eyes as they made their escape.
"Everything
is gone. We have to start again from nothing, but we are alive," she told
the news agency.
At least
one blaze in Oregon - the Almeda Fire, one of the most destructive in the state
- is being treated as suspected arson.
The smoke
pollution from the wildfires has left Oregon's largest city, Portland, with the
worst air quality in the world, followed by San Francisco and Seattle,
according to IQAir.com.
In
Washington State, firefighters are tackling 15 large fires. A one-year-old boy
died earlier this week as his family tried to escape a blaze. His
parents remain in critical condition.
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