Authorities in California were without news of at least eight people after the Dixie Fire, the devastating blaze that is currently affecting the American West and continued its mad race on Saturday.
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The gigantic blaze, the third largest fire in California history, devastated businesses and homes in the small town of Greenville this week.
While no one has yet been injured by the blaze, the Plumas County Sheriff's Office has received "
reports of eight missing persons
," he said.
Despite repeated evacuation orders from the authorities, some residents persisted in fighting the fire on their own, anxious not to entrust their safety to strangers.
Warmer weather should, however, provide some respite for the 5,000 firefighters who are fighting night and day the blaze, already larger than the city of Los Angeles.
“
Our units continue to work around Silver Lake,
” not far from where firefighters rest between shifts, said Jake Cagle, a California fire official.
The prolonged drought, which scientists believe is linked to climate change, has made the western United States particularly vulnerable to these very destructive fires.
And the Dixie Fire is now so big that it now generates its own climate, including its lightning, making its trajectory even more uncertain.
According to a preliminary investigation, the fall of a tree on one of the thousands of electric cables which outline the American landscape is at the origin of the blaze.
This power line is that of Pacific Gas & Company (PG&E), a private operator already guilty of causing Camp Fire, a blaze that nearly wiped the town of Paradise off the map and killed 86 people in 2018, just a few minutes away. kilometers from here.