Nearly 1,700 firefighters fought Sunday, September 11 against a violent fire which has already ravaged nearly 17,000 hectares of forest in California, a state hit by a persistent drought and which is just emerging from an acute heat wave.
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The fire, dubbed "
Mosquito Fire
", threatens 5,800 buildings and has already forced thousands of people to urgently evacuate their homes, according to the California Firefighting Agency.
Appeared Tuesday in the vicinity of Sacramento, it is progressing extremely rapidly.
The firefighters, who did not control it at all on Saturday evening, managed to contain it to 10% during the night, thanks to a slight drop in temperatures and greater humidity.
“
But an acceleration of the winds helps it to progress towards the north and the northeast
”, specifies the agency in its last bulletin.
“
We are used to seeing fires that advance slowly through the undergrowth, but it is rare that we have this type of conflagration
”, commented a spokesperson for the firefighters, Chris Vestal, questioned by the local TV channel KSBW.
Firefighters, assisted by bulldozers and aerial means, and the police, helped small towns to evacuate.
In the south of the state, heavy rains, fueled by a tropical storm, for their part allowed firefighters to regain control on Saturday of the “
Fairview Fire
”, which killed two people and burned 11,300 hectares near Los Angeles.
These precipitations put an end to the stifling heat wave undergone for a week by the American West, where the mercury sometimes curled the 45°C.
The region has been experiencing a historic drought for more than two decades, which scientists say is made worse by human-induced climate change.
It creates the conditions for repeated devastating fires.