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Fire truck in the light of the flames in Colorado: "A life-threatening situation"
Photo: KEVIN MOHATT / REUTERS
Parts of the US state of Colorado are on fire.
Hundreds of houses were destroyed by the fire and seven people were injured.
About 34,000 people are to be evacuated, said Sheriff Joe Pelle in a press conference.
The district of Boulder in the north of the state is particularly affected.
The governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, declared a state of emergency.
Electricity, wind and climate change
The forest fires are unusual for the winter.
Power lines overturned by gusts of wind had started a series of smaller fires that spread across the bone-dry countryside of Boulder County.
The winds favored the spread - and also made the fire-fighting work more difficult, as the planes could not take off.
The National Weather Service described the situation as "life-threatening".
TV pictures and photos on the Internet platform Twitter showed houses on fire.
Cars jam on mountain roads, thick clouds of smoke make visibility difficult.
More than 1,600 hectares are already on fire.
In the south the fires, in Alaska the "icemageddon"
There is also extreme weather further north of the USA: The authorities warned of an "icemageddon" (alluding to the word "Armageddon" for an absolute disaster).
Because there was more rain than it had in decades and frozen on the ground, large parts of the streets are covered by a thick layer of ice.
At the same time there were heat records: On the island of Kodiak in southern Alaska, 19.4 degrees Celsius was measured.
The freak weather with snow and rain also caused traffic problems and evacuations in Washington State and California.
Scientists attribute the increasingly unpredictable extreme weather of recent months in the USA to man-made climate change.
Both forest fires and storms are increasing in intensity and causing great damage.
jlk / AFP