Two brush fires, progressing rapidly and fanned by strong winds, have raged since Monday in the Los Angeles area, where they have ravaged more than 5,900 hectares and led to the evacuation of more than 90,000 residents, while California was placed on red fire alert.
The largest fire, dubbed “Silverado Fire”, started at 6:47 am local time in the Irvine Hills (approximately 60 km southeast of Los Angeles). “Firefighters continue to fight the blazes overnight,” Orange County firefighters told Facebook on Monday evening.
This fire has already burned 3,200 hectares, but the emergency services indicated that they were not aware of destroyed buildings. Two firefighters were injured by the flames and hospitalized in serious condition.
“It was crazy. Even in the car, eyes, nose and throat stung. It looked like night had fallen, ”Frédéric Tournadre, a French expatriate whose company is located in Irvine, told AFP.
The premises are located outside the evacuation perimeter, but the management preferred to ask its staff to leave the premises for the day. “Even in the offices, we started to smell” of smoke, underlined Mr. Tournadre.
A second disaster broke out in the early afternoon in Yorba Linda, nearly 30 km to the north. Nicknamed “Blue Ridge Fire”, it has already burned more than 2,600 hectares.
On Monday, the Silverado fire had quadrupled in area by afternoon. Several highways had to be cut due to the rapid progression of the flames, without hampering the evacuations, which affected around 90,800 people, according to the authorities.
The strong wind blowing over the area, with peaks of more than 100 km / h, not only fuels the flames, but also prevents the intervention of aerial means of firefighting.
Weather services have placed a large area around Los Angeles on red fire alert until Tuesday afternoon due to strong, very dry winds that have started to blow.
Similar alerts are in effect across much of California, including the upstate.
The phenomenon is typical for this time of year, but this episode is particularly strong and brings together “the most dangerous conditions for fires that we have seen since October 2019”, when the flames caused evacuations at the gates of Los Angeles , threatening in particular the famous Getty museum.
California officials have pointed to climate change as a major cause of the increase in brush fires.
In the grip of a chronic drought made worse by climate change, the western United States has suffered wildfires of exceptional magnitude this year, with 31 dead and nearly 17,000 km2 gone up in smoke in California alone. since the start of the season.
Some of the giant fires that broke out in the upstate last August were still not fully contained on Monday.