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1/5 of states dealing with blazing fires; thousands forced to leave homes

Jul 13, 2021

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Fires continue to burn in 12 states primarily along the West Coast Tuesday, forcing thousands of people to leave their homes. The video above shows some of the fires that are blazing throughout  California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska.

In addition to those four states, the National Interagency Fire Center said there are currently 67 active wildfires in Idaho, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Minnesota. More than half of those fires are in Idaho, Arizona and Montana.

Those fires have already burned nearly 918,000 acres. More than 14,200 firefighters are working to put them out.

The largest of these fires is the Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon. A Tuesday morning update from the National Wildfire Coordinating Group has the fire surpassing 200,000 acres in size. That’s more than twice the size of Portland. State fire officials said the fire has burned about 21 homes and threatened about 2,000 more. The NWCG estimates the fire won’t be fully contained until the end of November.

The fire disrupted service on three transmission lines providing up to 5,500 megawatts of electricity to California. The operator said more than 44,500 megawatts were available Tuesday.

California’s biggest fire is the Beckwourth Complex Fire. As of Tuesday morning, it was almost 93,000 acres in size and scortching the Plumas National Forest. Evacuation orders were put in place for more than 3,000 residents of remote northern areas and neighboring Nevada.

There are reports of burned homes, but the damage is still being tallied. The good news: as of Tuesday morning, containment jumped to 46 percent.

The fires erupted as the West was in the grip of the second bout of dangerously high temperatures in just a few weeks. A climate change-fueled megadrought also is contributing to conditions that make fires even more dangerous, scientists say.

There have been almost 34,000 fires so far in 2021. That’s the highest total to date since 2011.

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