Fire Crews Make Progress Battling Historic California Blazes

Thousands of firefighters made no progress on Monday as they worked to suppress major wildfires in California, with possibly harmful lighting storms being milder than anticipated and temperatures falling.

Governor Gavin Newsom said some 625 fires were raging throughout the state, destroying more than 1.2 million acres — almost the size of the Grand Canyon, reports AFP.

For those fires, 17 were deemed to be significant, he said, including the LNU Lightning Complex and the SCU Lightning Complex — which contain multiple fires each and have been two of the biggest wildfires in the history of the state as far as acreage is burnt.

The LNU Lightning Complex that exploded north of San Francisco on August 8 was 22 percent on Monday afternoon.

The SCU Lightning Cluster, which also ignited on August 8 and burns southeast of San Francisco, was 10% early in the day.

The big fire — the CZU Lightning Complex — burned in regions along the shore.

Much of the fires were sparked by so-called dry lightning strikes in the central and northern sections of the province.

“We are essentially living in a mega-fire era,” said Jake Hess, a unit chief in Santa Clara for state firefighting agency Cal Fire.

“We have folks that have been working for Cal Fire for the last five years and that’s all they understand, it’s mega fires since they’ve started.”

Hess said the fires have become larger and more dangerous every year and warned that firefighters had to pace themselves to get “to the end of this marathon.”

– Pandemic complicates fire response –

The fires have burned more than 100 homes and other facilities and are affecting more than 100,000 houses, authorities said.

Around 14,000 overstretched and tired firefighters – around from other nations, or also Canada and Australia – have been working to control the flames.

The staggering scale of the fires, coming this early during fire season which normally runs from August to November, is unprecedented.

Even, there was little comfort for firefighters overnight, because elevated temperatures and poor humidity had eased the fires over the past week.

Lightning storms overnight were not as severe as they were initially expected.

But the authorities cautioned citizens not to let their guard down as further lightning strikes may have hit the area.

The fires have presented an unexpected threat to the state as it struggles to curb the COVID-19 pandemic that has left several areas of California already sealed up.

Newsom added that further precautions — including safety screening — were taken by the officials in centers set up to handle some tens of thousands of residents forced to leave because of the fires.