“There isn’t a ‘normal’ anymore. We need to be prepared for anything,” said Norm McDonald, the Incident Commander for the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, the nation’s largest that was ignited in early July and was only 53% contained by Thursday.
Nearly half of California is currently suffering exceptional drought, which is the worst category designated by the US Drought Monitor.
Last week, a little over a third of the state was under that category. Now, nearly 14.5 million people are impacted, a more than 50% increase from last week, according to the monitor, which is produced through a partnership between US government agencies and the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
“Further expansion of moderate to exceptional drought was introduced in parts of California and the Northwest, as agricultural, wildfire, and water-supply impacts continued to mount,” the Drought Monitor said.
The Pacific Northwest — specifically Northern California, Western Oregon, and Washington state — is under heat alerts with triple-digit heat causing sweltering conditions, CNN meteorologist Robert Shackelford said.
“There are also dry thunderstorms across the Pacific Northwest coast, with dry thunderstorms potentially sparking new fires,” Shackelford said. “Dry thunderstorms threat will be there until at least Saturday but may be extended later into the weekend and into next week.”
California’s wildfire season has been devastating, and the exacerbated drought conditions are bound to make it even worse. Wildfires in California have scorched close to four times the number of acres destroyed at this time last year.
So far, six active wildfires in the state have burned 354,829 acres, with the largest — the Dixie Fire — destroying 226,421 acres alone. Its containment remained at 23% Thursday, with huge pockets of smoke reducing visibility, according to InciWeb, the clearinghouse for fire information in the US.
The worsening drought is also affecting Oregon. Nearly one-fourth of the state is under exceptional drought, a record high in the state, which makes it harder to control the massive Bootleg Fire.
“Despite the recent rain, fire activity picked up yesterday,” according to a statement on InciWeb. “Fire activity increased as the warm day dried out the fire faster and wind gusts were stronger than expected.”
The Bootleg has scorched 413,545 acres while destroying more than 400 structures and 342 vehicles in its way, according to InciWeb.
“As we move out of normal climatological range, previous experience is less relevant,” said Fire Behavior Specialist Chris Moore. “The rain that we got will not put the fire out. Spotting will become more of an issue as fuels dry out again.”
Biden and Harris to meet with governors to talk about raging wildfires
Overall, the dozens of large active wildfires have burned 1.69 million acres across 13 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. For the year to date, fires have burned 3.4 million acres, NIFC said.The devastation has prompted President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to meet with seven governors whose states are experiencing the brunt of the wildfires and drought.
The virtual meeting Friday will be with Govs. Greg Gianforte of Montana, Jay Inslee of Washington, Gavin Newsom of California, Brad Little of Idaho, Kate Brown of Oregon, Tim Walz of Minnesota and Mark Gordon of Wyoming.
Plans for the meeting came after Newsom and Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak implored the federal government on Wednesday for more resources to battle the dozens of wildfires across the West.
Nevada and California are home to the Tamarack Fire, which has burned 68,696 acres as it straddles the states’ border. It was 65% contained Thursday.
“We need help. We need help on the federal side. We need more people coming in. We need more resources. We need more air support. We need more people and more boots on the ground in order to make this a more fair fight in terms of fighting these fires,” Sisolak said at a joint news conference with Newsom on Wednesday.
The governors’ meeting with Biden and Harris will discuss funding and investing in wildland firefighters, including increasing pay for federal firefighters and extending hiring for temporary firefighters. In June, Biden signed an executive order that raised the minimum wage for federal firefighters to $15 an hour.
The group will also talk about efforts to strengthen wildfire prevention, preparedness, mitigation and response efforts, and will hear how an early and severe wildfire season is affecting residents and land in the states.
Wildfires are a global issue
It’s not just the US facing the devastating impact of the climate crisis, which is making deadlier and more destructive wildfires the new normal.
Wildfires have spread in southern Europe, including on the Italian island of Sardinia, where nearly 1,000 people fled their homes due to encroaching flames.
The island’s local government declared a state of emergency, calling the fires a “disaster without precedence.”
And in Greece, 50 fires were ignited between two days this week as the country grappled with a stubborn heatwave.
Meanwhile in Russia, the far eastern region of Yakutia has seen 6,424,739 million acres destroyed in wildfires since the beginning of the year, according to figures published by the country’s Aerial Forest Protection Service.
In North America, Canada’s hundreds of wildfires are so intense that British Columbia officials sought Mexican firefighters last week to help combat the raging flames, officials said.
CNN’s Ella Nilsen, Cheri Mossburg, and Brandon Miller contributed to this report.
