A wildfire across the west coast in California has killed at least 19 people and destroyed more than 1 million acres in Oregon, where dozens of people are missing and tens of thousands of people are missing amid a series of dangerous winds. The house was vacated’. World.
Oregon officials say they believe the
wildfires may have claimed more lives than the number of structures burned, but
they say the death toll is unclear when they began surveying the disaster. More
than 1,500 square miles of fires erupted in the state on Friday.
"We know we are dealing with
fire-related deaths, and based on what we know and are preparing for mass
casualties, the number of people who have been lost," the director of the
emergency office said. Andrew Phelps said. Management Phelps said it could not
confirm how many deaths had been caused by the fire, but at least five deaths
were recorded’ on a government-run dashboard.
After intense daytime temperatures and dry
winds, cold weather helped firefighters control some of the 16 fires across the
state on Friday. Doug Graff, chief of fire protection at Oregon's Department of
Forestry, said it was difficult to move forward when the limited smoke from the
bombing limited the ability of firefighters to fly. Grafe said eight of the 16
fires will remain on the map until the fall rains.
Greif said the blaze, which began 56 miles
southeast of Portland, had increased dramatically, burning about 440,000 acres
in an area of the state that was engulfed’ in a forest fire of this
magnitude. We’re not equipped with Also in Portland, a blanket of smoke covered
the sky, where officials opened the Oregon Convention Center for evacuation.
"We have never seen this fire in this
state, it has never been before, together with our communities," Grafe
said. "We have a huge workload ahead of us."
The state evacuated more than 40,000
residents as fire officials expected two large-scale Blaze-Riverside fires and
Biggie Creek fires over the weekend. Officials also included about 500,000
residents under evacuation orders or warnings - more than 10 percent of the
state's population.
And here in Clackamas County, the state's
third most populous county, thousands of residents were left’ in confusion and
chaos as they searched for safer places to live amid a global pandemic. Some
people fled their homes to evacuate just to learn that it was already full, or
that they were later evacuated’ due to a fire.
As of Friday, several families were
sleeping in tents in cars, RVs and parking lots across the state, until
temperatures plummeted to the 50's and weather experts warned residents to
beware of dangerous winds. Stay indoors.
Among them were Maria Juarez, 74, and her
daughter, Guadalupe Juarez, 30, who were sitting on lawn chairs in thick smoke
in the parking lot of Clackamas Town Center, just half an hour after the
evacuation site outside Portland. On Thursday, the two women, who are on
dialysis, fled their homes in Estacada when fire officials warned Blaise was
approaching their hometown.
With Juarez's husband and second daughter,
they arrived at a nearby community college where evacuation work had been,
done. But they were told’ they would have to go elsewhere, as those present
were also forced to evacuate.
"They threw us out like cats and
dogs," he said.
He slept in his car in the parking lot of Clackamas
Town Center on Thursday night, until a stranger offered to unload his boat from
his trailer so that the family could sleep inside. The family had no way to
evacuate to Portland, as Juarez's husband had to use the family's car to work
for a meat company on Friday.
"I have lived in this country for
three decades and I have never had anything like this, in a street without a
place to sleep," said Juarez. Bundled
spoke
under a blanket.
Partially blind, Guadalupe Juarez said she
no longer trusted the government. He was sure they would have to vacate another
parking lot.
"It's like playing or hiding and
finding tags," he said. "We can only pray now, pray that God hears
us."
Dozens of Oregonians are reported’ missing
in Swat, including small towns in Jackson County, southern Oregon, where
hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed earlier in the week, officials
said. On Friday afternoon, Jackson County Sheriff Nathan Schiller announced fire
charges against a 41-year-old man in connection with at least part of the
Almeida Fire that was torn down’ by the county.
In Northern California, wildfires that
have burned more than 2.5 million acres have killed at least nine people. Butt
County Sheriff's Office confirmed seven additional deaths in the North Complex
fire on Thursday and said 16 people were missing in the state's deadliest fire
this year. A total of 19 people have been killed’ in wildfires in California
this year, fire officials said Friday.
President Trump has approved Oregon's
request for an emergency declaration, which would include assistance from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide temporary housing for displaced
people and additional firefighting resources.
Oregon officials also found themselves
fighting misinformation about the cause of the blaze. Several law enforcement
agencies have taken to social media to dispel rumors that right-wing or
right-wing opponents have deliberately caused something to spread.
In Portland, the FBI tweeted Friday,
"Conspiracy theories and misinformation take valuable resources away from
local fire and police agencies working around the clock to control these
fires."
Residents fleeing the fire in Clackamas
County said they struggled to find evacuation orders and locations, especially
when they slept in parking lots without access to their usual news. ۔ At Clackamas County Fairgrounds Canby, Fair
Grounds, which was accepting evacuations with cattle, family members arrived
uncertainly Thursday and misrepresented to an official's reporters that the
site was being evacuated.
Molalla 63-year-old Bill Kimball was
staying with his family in an RV in the fairgrounds, where his auctions, pigs
and goats were also, kept. He said he had already lost confidence in his
elected officials in response to the ongoing protests in Portland.
Even our government has no control over
anything. "Look at Portland, there's no control," said Kimball.
"The coveted thing turned us upside down, and now this."
Sandra Contreras, 28, said she was disturbed’
by rumors of looting in Molalla as she walked around the Clackamas town center
parking lot, which alerted other migrants that Taco Bell was donating food. She
fears being separated’ from her family, so she spends the last two nights
sleeping in her car near their loaded RV.
"It's been very disturbing," Contreras
said. "I feel like they're not telling us what's going on."
A few rows away in the parking lot, Jordan
Justice's children were sitting on the ground drawing and painting in colorful
books. Her 4-year-old daughter ate a plate of pancakes and sat in the back of
her car. The night before, as 10 members of their family could not find a place
in a shelter, the family torpedoed their vehicles and set up a makeshift tent.
Justice and her sister slipped into their
arms with their six children, sleeping on blankets on the ground. Justice spent
the night suffocating and worried about his 5-year-old daughter, who was
sleeping outside in the smoky air. As the temperature dropped overnight, the
children shivered.
On Friday morning, a stranger in the
parking lot offered him a tent of 10 people and told him: "Wherever you
end tonight, it's yours." Fairing separation, the family planned to spend
another night in the parking lot.
"This is our family. We don't have
family. . . "We don't have the luxury of renting an RV," Justice
said. "We had nowhere to go."
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