By Sharon Bernstein
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – Uncontrolled wildfires raged across the U.S. West on Tuesday, incinerating the Washington town of Malden and threatening communities in Oregon and California, driven by high winds and unprecedented heat over the Labor Day weekend.
Firefighters and emergency responders searched on Tuesday for residents of tiny Malden, about 300 miles (483 km) east of Seattle, a day after a firestorm destroyed 80 percent of its homes along with the fire station, post office, city hall and library.
“The scale of this disaster really can’t be expressed in words,” Brett Myers, sheriff of Whitman County, where the town is located, said in a statement on Tuesday. “I pray everyone got out in time.”
The fire that destroyed Malden was one of dozens of large blazes burning in Washington, Oregon and California over the Labor Day Weekend, as temperatures in the western part of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley topped 121 degrees (49C).
In California, about 14,000 firefighters battled 25 blazes, with more than 2.2 million acres (890,308 hectares) charred since the fire season got an early start last month, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on Tuesday.
The Creek Fire in the Fresno area in central California, which caused the weekend emergency evacuation of more than 200 people vacationing at a popular reservoir, grew overnight under what CalFire on Tuesday called “extreme conditions.”
The blaze, which started on Sept. 4, threatened the community of Shaver Lake, fueled in part by trees killed by the invasive bark beetle, the fire agency said.
It was completely uncontained and had burned 144,000 acres (58,274.7 hectares) by Tuesday morning, CalFire said. Evacuation centers had been set up in Fresno and Madera Counties as the fire moved aggressively south, officials said.
In California, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) shut off power to thousands of residents in 22 counties to prevent sparks from its equipment from setting off more fires.
A fire in San Bernardino County, southeast of Los Angeles, that officials said was caused by a pyrotechnic device used during a gender reveal party, had burned nearly 11,000 acres by Tuesday morning and was 16% contained, CalFire said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sunday declared a state of emergency in Fresno, Madera, Mariposa, San Bernardino and San Diego counties due to the wildfires. They also prompted the U.S. Forest Service to temporarily close some national forests including the Sierra National Forest, the Angeles National Forest and the San Bernardino National Forest.
In Oregon, several communities were evacuated and the first day of school postponed as wildfire threatened towns, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
About 100,000 customers lost power amid windstorms and fire, and power was shut off to about 5,000 residents west of Mt. Hood to prevent sparks that might start new blazes, it said.
(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
