Tag Archives: Environment and nature

US

Northwest sizzles as heat wave hits many parts of US

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Volunteers and county employees set up cots and stacked hundreds of bottles of water in an air-conditioned cooling center in a vacant building in Portland, Oregon, one of many such places being set up as the Northwest sees another stretch of sizzling temperatures.

Scorching weather also hit other parts of the country this week. The weather service said heat advisories and warnings would be in effect from the Midwest to the Northeast and mid-Atlantic through at least Friday.

In Portland, tempertures neared 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius) on Wednesday and the mercury could soar past the century mark Thursday and Friday. Authorities trying to provide relief to vulnerable people are mindful of a record-shattering heat wave earlier this summer that killed hundreds in the Pacific Northwest.

The high temperatures in Portland, part of a usually temperate region, would break all-time records this week if the late June heat wave had not done so already. Seattle will be cooler than Portland, with temperatures in the mid-90s, but it still has a chance to break records, and many people there, like in Oregon, don’t have air conditioning.

People began coming into a 24-hour cooling center in north Portland before it opened Wednesday.

The first few people in were experiencing homelessness, a population vulnerable to extreme heat. Among them was December Snedecor, who slept two nights in the same center in June when temperatures reached 116 F (47 C).

She said she planned to sleep there again this week because the heat in her tent was unbearable.

“I poured water over myself a lot. It was up in the teens, hundred-and-something heat. It made me dizzy. It was not good,” Snedecor said of the June heat. “I’ve just got to stay cool. I don’t want to die.”

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has declared a state of emergency and activated an emergency operations center, citing the potential for disruptions to the power grid and transportation. Besides opening cooling centers, city and county governments are extending public library hours and waiving bus fare for those headed to cooling centers. A 24-hour statewide help line will direct callers to the nearest cooling shelter and offer safety tips.

Emergency officials have sent alerts to phones, said Dan Douthit, spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management.

The back-to-back heat waves, coupled with a summer that’s been exceptionally warm and dry overall, are pummeling a region where summer highs usually drift into the 70s or 80s. Intense heat waves and a historic drought in the American West reflect climate change that is making weather more extreme.

The June heat in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia killed hundreds of people and served as a wake-up call for what’s ahead in a warming world. It was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, a detailed scientific analysis found.

Even younger residents struggled with the heat in June and dreaded this week’s sweltering temperatures.

Katherine Morgan, 27, has no air conditioning in her third-floor apartment and can’t afford a window unit on the money she makes working at a bookstore and as a hostess at a brewery.

She’ll have to walk to work Thursday, the day when temperatures could again soar.

“All my friends and I knew that climate change was real, but it’s getting really scary because it was gradually getting hot — and it suddenly got really hot, really fast,” Morgan said.

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US

Huge California fire grows; Montana blaze threatens towns

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GREENVILLE, Calif. (AP) — California’s largest single wildfire in recorded history continued to grow Wednesday after destroying more than 1,000 buildings, nearly half of them homes, while authorities in Montana ordered evacuations as a wind-driven blaze roared toward several remote communities.

The dangerous fires were among some 100 large blazes burning across 15 states, mostly in the West, where historic drought conditions have left lands parched and ripe for ignition.

Burning through bone-dry trees, brush and grass, the Dixie Fire has destroyed at least 1,045 buildings, including 550 homes, in the northern Sierra Nevada. Newly released satellite imagery showed the scale of the destruction in the small community of Greenville that was incinerated last week during an explosive run of flames.

The Dixie Fire, named after the road where it started on July 14, by Wednesday morning covered 783 square miles (2,027 square kilometers) and was 30% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. At least 14,000 remote homes were still threatened.

The Dixie Fire is the largest single fire in California history and the largest currently burning in the U.S. It is about half the size of the August Complex, a series of lightning-caused 2020 fires across seven counties that were fought together and that state officials consider California’s largest wildfire overall.

The fire’s cause was under investigation. Pacific Gas & Electric has said it may have been sparked when a tree fell on one of its power lines.

California authorities arrested a man last weekend who is suspected in an arson fire in remote forested areas near the Dixie Fire.

The 47-year-old suspect was charged with setting a small blaze in Lassen County, which is among the counties where the larger blaze is burning, around July 20.

In southeastern Montana, the uncontrolled Richard Spring Fire continued to advance Wednesday toward inhabited areas in and around the sparsely-populated Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, after several thousand people were ordered to evacuate the previous night.

Two homes caught fire Tuesday but were saved, authorities said.

The fire began Sunday and powerful gusts caused it to explode across more than 230 square miles (600 square kilometers).

A few miles from the evacuated town of Lame Deer, Krystal Two Bulls and some friends stuck around to clear brush from her yard in hopes of protecting it from the flames. Thick plumes of smoke rose from behind a tree-covered ridgeline just above the house.

“We’re packed and we’re loaded so if we have to go, we will,” Two Bull said. “I’m not fearful; I’m prepared. Here you don’t just run from fire or abandon your house.”

Some of the people who fled the fire Tuesday initially sought shelter in Lame Deer, only to be displaced again when the fire got within several miles.

The town of about 2,000 people is home to the tribal headquarters and several subdivisions and is surrounded by rugged, forested terrain. By late Wednesday a second fire was closing in on Lame Deer from the west, while the Richard Spring fire raged to the east.

Also ordered to leave were about 600 people in and around Ashland, a small town just outside the reservation with a knot of businesses along its main street and surrounded by grasslands and patchy forest.

The flames were within several miles of town and came right up to a subdivision outside it.

Local, state and federal firefighters were joined by ranchers using their own heavy equipment to carve out fire lines around houses.

Heat waves and historic drought tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West.

Scientists have said climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. The fires across the West come as parts of Europe are also enduring large blazes spurred by tinder-dry conditions.

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World

Wildfires in Algeria leave 42 dead, including 25 soldiers

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ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — At least 25 soldiers died saving residents from wildfires ravaging mountain forests and villages east of Algeria’s capital, the president announced Tuesday night as the civilian toll rose to at least 17.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune tweeted that the soldiers were “martyrs” who saved 100 people from the fires in two areas of Kabyle, the region that is home to the North African nation’s Berber population. Eleven other soldiers were burned fighting the fires, four of them seriously, the Defense Ministry said.

Prime Minister Aïmene Benabderrahmane later said on state TV that 17 civilians had lost their lives, raising the count of citizens from seven previously and bringing the total death toll to 42. He provided no details.

The mountainous Kabyle region, 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Algeria’s capital of Algiers, is dotted with difficult-to-access villages and with temperatures rising has had limited water. Some villagers were fleeing, while others tried to hold back the flames themselves, using buckets, branches and rudimentary tools. The region has no water-dumping planes.

The deaths and injuries Tuesday occurred mainly around Kabyle’s capital of Tizi-Ouzou, which is flanked by mountains, and also in Bejaia, which borders the Mediterranean Sea, the president said.

The prime minister told state television that initial reports from security services showed the fires in Kabyle were “highly synchronized,” adding that “leads one to believe these were criminal acts.” Earlier, Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud traveled to Kabyle to assess the situation and also blamed the fires there on arson.

“Thirty fires at the same time in the same region can’t be by chance,” Beldjoud said on national television, although no arrests were announced.

There were no immediate details to explain the high death toll among the military. A photo pictured on the site of the Liberte daily showed a soldier with a shovel dousing sputtering flames with dirt, his automatic weapon slung over his shoulder.

Dozens of blazes sprang up Monday in Kabyle and elsewhere, and Algerian authorities sent in the army to help citizens battle blazes and evacuate. Multiple fires were burning through forests and devouring olive trees, cattle and chickens that provide the livelihoods of families in the Kabyle region.

The Civil Protection authority counted 41 blazes in 18 wilayas, or regions, as of Monday night, with 21 of them burning around Tizi Ouzou.

A 92-year-old woman living in the Kabyle mountain village of Ait Saada said the scene Monday night looked like “the end of the world.”

“We were afraid,” Fatima Aoudia told The Associated Press. “The entire hill was transformed into a giant blaze.”

Aoudia compared the scene to bombings by French troops during Algeria’s brutal independence war, which ended in 1962.

“These burned down forests. It’s a part of me that is gone,” Aoudia said. “It’s a drama for humanity, for nature. It’s a disaster.”

An opposition party with roots in the Kabyle region, the RCD, denounced authorities’ slow response to the rash of blazes as citizens organized local drives to collect bottled water and other supplies. Calls for help, including from Algerians living abroad, went out on social media, one in English trending on Twitter with the hashtag #PrayforAlgeria. Photos and videos posted showed plumes of dark smoke and orange skies rising above hillside villages or soldiers in army fatigues without protective clothing.

Climate scientists say there is little doubt climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving extreme events, such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms. A worsening drought and heat — both linked to climate change — are driving wildfires in the U.S. West and Russia’s northern region of Siberia. Extreme heat is also fueling the massive fires in Greece and Turkey.

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World

Wildfires in Algeria leave 42 dead, including 25 soldiers

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ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — At least 25 soldiers died saving residents from wildfires ravaging mountain forests and villages east of Algeria’s capital, the president announced Tuesday night as the civilian toll rose to at least 17.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune tweeted that the soldiers were “martyrs” who saved 100 people from the fires in two areas of Kabyle, the region that is home to the North African nation’s Berber population. Eleven other soldiers were burned fighting the fires, four of them seriously, the Defense Ministry said.

Prime Minister Aïmene Benabderrahmane later said on state TV that 17 civilians had lost their lives, raising the count of citizens from seven previously and bringing the total death toll to 42. He provided no details.

The mountainous Kabyle region, 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Algeria’s capital of Algiers, is dotted with difficult-to-access villages and with temperatures rising has had limited water. Some villagers were fleeing, while others tried to hold back the flames themselves, using buckets, branches and rudimentary tools. The region has no water-dumping planes.

The deaths and injuries Tuesday occurred mainly around Kabyle’s capital of Tizi-Ouzou, which is flanked by mountains, and also in Bejaia, which borders the Mediterranean Sea, the president said.

The prime minister told state television that initial reports from security services showed the fires in Kabyle were “highly synchronized,” adding that “leads one to believe these were criminal acts.” Earlier, Interior Minister Kamel Beldjoud traveled to Kabyle to assess the situation and also blamed the fires there on arson.

“Thirty fires at the same time in the same region can’t be by chance,” Beldjoud said on national television, although no arrests were announced.

There were no immediate details to explain the high death toll among the military. A photo pictured on the site of the Liberte daily showed a soldier with a shovel dousing sputtering flames with dirt, his automatic weapon slung over his shoulder.

Dozens of blazes sprang up Monday in Kabyle and elsewhere, and Algerian authorities sent in the army to help citizens battle blazes and evacuate. Multiple fires were burning through forests and devouring olive trees, cattle and chickens that provide the livelihoods of families in the Kabyle region.

The Civil Protection authority counted 41 blazes in 18 wilayas, or regions, as of Monday night, with 21 of them burning around Tizi Ouzou.

A 92-year-old woman living in the Kabyle mountain village of Ait Saada said the scene Monday night looked like “the end of the world.”

“We were afraid,” Fatima Aoudia told The Associated Press. “The entire hill was transformed into a giant blaze.”

Aoudia compared the scene to bombings by French troops during Algeria’s brutal independence war, which ended in 1962.

“These burned down forests. It’s a part of me that is gone,” Aoudia said. “It’s a drama for humanity, for nature. It’s a disaster.”

An opposition party with roots in the Kabyle region, the RCD, denounced authorities’ slow response to the rash of blazes as citizens organized local drives to collect bottled water and other supplies. Calls for help, including from Algerians living abroad, went out on social media, one in English trending on Twitter with the hashtag #PrayforAlgeria. Photos and videos posted showed plumes of dark smoke and orange skies rising above hillside villages or soldiers in army fatigues without protective clothing.

Climate scientists say there is little doubt climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving extreme events, such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms. A worsening drought and heat — both linked to climate change — are driving wildfires in the U.S. West and Russia’s northern region of Siberia. Extreme heat is also fueling the massive fires in Greece and Turkey.

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World

Massive forest fire ravages Greek island

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ARKITSA, Greece (AP) — Firefighters and residents battled into the night Monday for a seventh day against a massive fire on Greece’s second-largest island as the nation endured what the prime minister described as “a natural disaster of unprecedented proportions.”

Smoke and ash from Evia, a rugged island of forests and coves close to the Greek mainland, blocked out the sun and turned the sky orange. The fire, which began Aug. 3, is the most severe of hundreds in the past week across Greece, gobbling up pristine pine forests as well as homes and businesses and forcing hundreds to quickly evacuate by sea to save their lives.

Greece has been baked by its worst heat wave in three decades, which sent temperatures up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) and turned its prized pine forests into bone-dry tinderboxes.

In a televised nationwide address, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the destruction in Evia and elsewhere “blackens everyone’s hearts” and pledged compensation for all affected, as well as a huge reforestation and regeneration effort. He also apologized for “any weaknesses” shown in addressing the emergency, a nod to criticism from some residents and officials who said Greece’s firefighting efforts and equipment were woefully inadequate.

“These last few days have been among the hardest for our country in decades,” Mitsotakis said. “We are dealing with a natural disaster of unprecedented dimensions.”

With roads on the island cut off by the flames, residents and tourists fled to Evia’s beaches and jetties to be ferried to safety by a flotilla of ferries and boats.

“We were completely forsaken. There were no fire brigades, there were no vehicles, nothing!” David Angelou, who had been in the seaside village of Pefki, said Sunday night after leaving by ferry to the mainland.

“You could feel the enormous heat, there was also a lot of smoke. You could see the sun, a red ball, and then, nothing else around,” he said.

Mitsotakis said Monday he “fully understands” the pain of those who lost homes or property, and the anger of those seeking airborne assistance “without knowing whether the firefighting aircraft were operating elsewhere or whether conditions made it impossible for them to fly.”

But he urged Greeks to reflect “not only on what was lost but also on what was saved in such an unprecedented natural disaster.”

Other big wildfires were still burning Monday in Greece’s southern Peloponnese region. Over the past week, hundreds of homes and businesses have been destroyed or damaged, and at least 40,000 hectares (nearly 100,000 acres) have been burned. Power cuts on Monday affected at least 17,000 households.

The causes of the blazes are as yet undetermined, though several people have been arrested for alleged arson. Greece’s top prosecutor has ordered an investigation into whether the high number of fires could be linked to criminal activity.

More than 20 countries in Europe and the Mideast have responded to Greece’s call for help, sending planes, helicopters, vehicles and manpower.

On Monday, Greece’s Foreign Ministry tweeted that neighboring Turkey — Greece’s historic regional rival — will be sending two firefighting planes because a top envoy said Turkey’s wildfires “are now under control.” The ministry also said Russia would be sending two firefighting planes and two helicopters.

Greek authorities, scarred by a deadly wildfire in 2018 near Athens that killed more than 100 people, have emphasized saving lives, issuing dozens of evacuation orders. The coast guard said 2,770 people had been evacuated by sea across the country between July 31 and Aug. 8.

Some residents ignored the orders to try to save their villages, spraying homes with garden hoses and digging mini firebreaks.

“The villagers themselves, with the firefighters, are doing what they can to save their own and neighboring villages,” said Yiannis Katsikoyiannis, a volunteer from Crete who came to Evia to help his father save his horse farm near Avgaria.

“If they had evacuated their villages, as the civil protection told them to, everything would have been burnt down – perhaps even two days sooner,” he said. “Of course, they never saw any water-dropping aircraft. And of course now the conditions are wrong for them to fly, due to the smoke.”

On Monday, the flames raced across northern Evia, threatening yet more villages even as 600 firefighters struggled to tame the inferno, aided by emergency teams from Ukraine, Romania and Serbia, 5 helicopters and 5 water-dropping planes.

One Greek volunteer firefighter died near Athens last week while four more were in the hospital Monday, two in critical condition with extensive burns.

Wildfires were also burning in southern Italy, North Macedonia and Montenegro, where a large fire in the Malo Brdo district of the capital Podgorica was coming close to houses on Monday.

In Italy, authorities urged the public to be careful with fire amid a heat wave forecast for this week, when many Italians take summer vacations. Firefighters for weeks have been battling blazes in Sardinia, Sicily and Calabria, and two have died.

“We have faced very difficult and dramatic days fighting fires, and the temperatures that are forecast require the utmost attention,” said Fabrizio Curcio, head of Italy’s Civil Protection agency. “We are asking the maximum collaboration and caution from citizens … to avoid any behavior that can set off a fire and report immediately the smallest blaze.”

In North Macedonia, dozens of wildfires followed the worst heat wave in decades. At least eight were still burning Monday, mostly in remote areas where only helicopters and planes could be deployed. Thousands of acres of forest have been destroyed and authorities have arrested five suspected arsonists.

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Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Associated Press journalists Nicolae Dumitrache in Pefki, Greece, Nicholas Paphitis in Kontias, Greece, Suzan Frazer in Ankara, Turkey, Konstantin Testorides in Skopje, North Macedonia, Colleen Barry in Milan, Italy, and Predrag Milic in Podgorica, Montenegro, contributed to this report.

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US

Fire-friendly weather to return to Northern California

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Thick smoke that held down winds and temperatures began to clear Sunday from the scenic forestlands of Northern California as firefighters battling the largest single wildfire in state history braced for a return of fire-friendly weather.

The winds weren’t expected to reach the ferocious speeds that helped the Dixie Fire explode in size last week. But they were nonetheless concerning for firefighters working in unprecedented conditions to protect thousands of threatened homes.

“The live trees that are out there now have a lower fuel moisture than you would find when you go to a hardware store or a lumber yard and get that piece of lumber that’s kiln dried,” Mark Brunton, operations section chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said in an online briefing Sunday morning. “It’s that dry, so it doesn’t take much for any sort of embers, sparks or small flaming front to get that going.”

Fueled by strong winds and bone-dry vegetation, the fire incinerated much of Greenville on Wednesday and Thursday, destroying 370 homes and structures and threatening nearly 14,000 buildings in the northern Sierra Nevada.

The Dixie Fire, named for the road where it started nearly four weeks ago, grew to an area of 765 square miles (1,980 square kilometers) by Sunday evening and was just 21% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It had scorched an area more than twice the size of New York City.

With smoke clearing out on eastern portions of the fire, crews that had been directly attacking the front lines would be forced to retreat and build containment lines farther back, said Dan McKeague, a fire information officer from the U.S. Forest Service. On the plus side, better visibility should allow planes and helicopters to return to the firefight and make it safer for ground crews to maneuver.

“As soon as that air clears, we can fly again,” McKeague said.

Crews have constructed 465 miles (748 kilometers) of line around the massive blaze, Deputy Incident Commander Chris Waters said. That’s about the distance from the central California city of Chico to Los Angeles. But officials are only confident that about 20% of the line is secure, he said.

“Every bit of that line needs to be constructed, staffed, mopped up and actually put to bed before we can call this fire fully contained,” Waters said during Saturday evening’s incident briefing.

Strong winds contributed to increased fire activity Sunday. But the weather was expected to settle a bit starting Monday.

Damage reports are preliminary because assessment teams can’t get into many areas, officials said.

The blaze became the largest single fire in California’s recorded history, surpassing last year’s Creek Fire in the Central Valley. It’s about half the size of the August Complex, a series of lightning-caused 2020 fires across seven counties that were fought together and that state officials consider California’s largest wildfire overall.

The fire’s cause was under investigation. The Pacific Gas & Electric utility has said it may have been sparked when a tree fell on one of its power lines. A federal judge ordered PG&E on Friday to give details by Aug. 16 about the equipment and vegetation where the fire started.

Cooler temperatures and higher humidity slowed the spread of the fire, and temperatures topped 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) instead of the triple-digit highs recorded earlier in the week.

But the blaze and its neighboring fires, within several hundred miles of each other, posed an ongoing threat.

Gov. Gavin Newsom surveyed the damage in Greenville Saturday, writing on Twitter that “our hearts ache for this town.”

“These are climate-induced wildfires and we have to acknowledge that we have the capacity in not just the state but in this country to solve this,” Newsom said on CNN.

Heat waves and historic drought tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists have said climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

Northwest of the Dixie Fire in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, hundreds of homes remained threatened by the McFarland and Monument fires, which continued growing. About a quarter of the McFarland Fire was contained and about 3% of the Monument Fire was contained.

South of the Dixie Fire, firefighters prevented further growth of the River Fire, which broke out Wednesday near Colfax and destroyed 68 homes.

Smoke from wildfires burning in the U.S. West continues to flow into parts of Colorado and Utah, where the air quality in many areas was rated as unhealthy. Denver’s air quality Sunday was relatively better than Saturday, but the smoke has made the air there and in Salt Lake City among the worst in the world.

California’s fire season is on track to surpass last year’s season, which was the worst fire season in recent recorded state history.

Since the start of the year, more than 6,000 blazes have destroyed more than 1,260 square miles (3,260 square kilometers) of land — more than triple the losses for the same period in 2020, according to state fire figures.

California’s raging wildfires were among 107 large fires burning across 14 states, mostly in the West, where historic drought conditions have left lands parched and ripe for ignition.

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Associated Press writer Daisy Nguyen contributed.

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US

Town burns to ashes in raging Northern California wildfire

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GREENVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Eva Gorman says the little California mountain town of Greenville was a place of community and strong character, the kind of place where neighbors volunteered to move furniture, colorful baskets of flowers brightened Main Street, and writers, musicians, mechanics and chicken farmers mingled.

Now, it’s ashes.

As hot, bone-dry, gusty weather hit California, the state’s largest current wildfire raged through the Gold Rush-era Sierra Nevada community of about 1,000, incinerating much of the downtown that included wooden buildings more than a century old.

The winds were expected to calm and change direction heading into the weekend but that good news came too late for Gorman.

“It’s just completely devastating. We’ve lost our home, my business, our whole downtown area is gone,” said Gorman, who heeded evacuation warnings and left town with her husband a week and-a-half ago as the Dixie Fire approached.

She managed to grab some photos off the wall, her favorite jewelry and important documents but couldn’t help but think of the family treasures left behind.

“My grandmother’s dining room chairs, my great-aunt’s bed from Italy. There is a photo I keep visualizing in my mind of my son when he was 2. He’s 37 now,” she said. “At first you think, ‘It’s OK, I have the negatives.’ And then you realize, ‘Oh. No. I don’t.’”

Officials had not yet assessed the number of destroyed buildings, but Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns estimated on Thursday that “well over” 100 homes had burned in and near the town.

“My heart is crushed by what has occurred there,” said Johns, a lifelong Greenville resident.

About a two-hour drive south, officials said some 100 homes and other buildings burned in the fast-moving River Fire that broke out Wednesday near Colfax, a town of about 2,000. There was no containment and about 6,000 people were ordered to evacuate in Placer and Nevada counties, state fire officials said.

The three-week-old Dixie Fire was one of 100 active, large fires burning in 14 states, most in the West where historic drought has left lands parched and ripe for ignition.

The Dixie Fire had consumed about 565 square miles (1,464 square kilometers), an area larger than the size of Los Angeles. The cause was under investigation, but Pacific Gas & Electric has said it may have been sparked when a tree fell on one of the utility’s power lines.

The blaze exploded on Wednesday and Thursday through timber, grass and brush so dry that one fire official described it as “basically near combustion.” Dozens of homes had already burned before the flames made new runs.

No deaths or injuries were reported but the fire continued to threaten more than 10,000 homes.

On Thursday, the weather and towering smoke clouds produced by the fire’s intense, erratic winds kept firefighters struggling to put firefighters at shifting hot spots.

“It’s wreaking havoc. The winds are kind of changing direction on us every few hours,” said Capt. Sergio Arellano, a fire spokesman.

“We’re seeing truly frightening fire behavior,” said Chris Carlton, supervisor for Plumas National Forest. “We really are in uncharted territory.”

Heat waves and historic drought tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

The blaze hit Greenville from two angles and firefighters already were in the town trying to save it but first they had to risk their lives to save people who had refused to evacuate by loading people into cars to get them out, fire officials said.

“We have firefighters that are getting guns pulled out on them, because people don’t want to evacuate,” said Jake Cagle, an incident management operations section chief.

The flames also reached the town of Chester, northwest of Greenville, but crews managed to protect homes and businesses there, with only minor damage to one or two structures, officials said.

The fire was not far from the town of Paradise, which was largely destroyed in a 2018 wildfire sparked by PG&E equipment that killed 85 people, making it the nation’s deadliest in at least a century.

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Weber reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Janie Har and Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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World

Thousands flee homes outside Athens as heat fuels wildfires

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TATOI, Greece (AP) — More than 500 firefighters struggled through the night to contain a large forest blaze on the outskirts of Athens, which raced into residential areas Tuesday, forcing thousands to flee. It was the worst of 81 wildfires that broke out in Greece over the past 24 hours, amid one of the country’s most intense heatwaves in decades.

Civil Protection chief Nikos Hardalias said the fire north of Athens was “very dangerous,” and had been exacerbated by strong winds and tinder-dry conditions due to the heat that reached 45 Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in the area.

No severe injuries were reported, and authorities said several buildings had been damaged but no detailed breakdown was available. The cause of the blaze was unclear.

“We continue to fight hour by hour, with our top priority being to save human lives,” Hardalias said. “We will do so all night.”

“These are crucial hours,” Hardalias said. “Our country is undergoing one of the worst heatwaves of the past 40 years.”

The wind dropped later Tuesday, and the regional governor for greater Athens, Giorgos Patoulis, said this could allow the fire to be tamed after water-dropping aircraft resume operations at first light Wednesday.

“If the winds don’t grow it can be brought under control by the early morning so the planes can provide the final solution,” he told state ERT TV.

The blaze sent a huge cloud of smoke over Athens, prompting multiple evacuations near Tatoi, 20 kilometers (12 1/2 miles) to the north and forcing the partial closure of Greece’s main north-south highway. Residents left their homes in cars and on motorcycles, often clutching pets, heading toward the capital amid a blanket of smoke.

One group stopped to help staff from a riding school push their horses into trucks to escape the flames.

Fire crews went house to house to ensure that evacuation orders were carried out, and 315 people were escorted to safety after calling for help. Authorities said nobody was listed as missing, and Greek media said six people required treatment for light breathing complaints.

As the heat wave scorching the eastern Mediterranean intensified, temperatures reached 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit) in parts of the Greek capital. The extreme weather has fueled deadly wildfires in Turkey and blazes in Italy, Greece, Albania and across the region.

Wildfires also raged in other parts of Greece, prompting evacuations of villages in Mani and Vassilitsa in the southern Peloponnese region, as well as on the islands of Evia and Kos, authorities said. A total 40 blazes were raging late Tuesday.

The fires prompted Greek basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo to cancel celebrations planned in Athens for the NBA championship he won recently with the Milwaukee Bucks.

“We hope there are no victims from these fires, and of course we will postpones today’s celebration,” Antetokounmpo wrote in a tweet.

Earlier, authorities closed the Acropolis and other ancient sites during afternoon hours. The site, which is normally open in the summer from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., will have reduced hours through Friday, closing between midday and 5 p.m.

The extreme heat, described by authorities as the worst in Greece since 1987, has strained the national power supply and fueled the wildfires.

The national grid operator said the power supply to part of the capital was “endangered” after part of the transmission system, damaged and threatened by the fires, was shut down.

Seven water-dropping planes and nine helicopters were involved in the firefighting effort near Athens, including a Beriev Be-200 amphibious aircraft leased from Russia. They ceased operations after dark for safety reasons.

The blaze damaged electricity pylons, adding further strain on the electricity network already under pressure due to the widespread use of air conditioning.

The Greek Fire Service maintained an alert for most of the country for Tuesday and Wednesday, while public and some private services shifted operating hours to allow for afternoon closures.

Hardalias appealed to the public for high vigilance.

“Because the heatwave will continue in coming days, please avoid any activity that could spark a fire,” he said.

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Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed.

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US

Record wildfire burns amid drought on Hawaii’s Big Island

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HONOLULU (AP) — Firefighters have gotten more control over a wildfire in Hawaii that forced thousands of people to evacuate over the weekend and destroyed at least two homes on the Big Island, but officials warned strong winds Monday could raise the danger again.

Authorities have lifted evacuation orders but warned they could be reinstated at any time and that people should be ready to go.

“It’s the biggest (fire) we’ve ever had on this island,” Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth said of the more than 62-square-mile (160-square-kilometer) blaze. “With the drought conditions that we’ve had, it is of concern. You see something like this where you’re putting thousands of homes in danger, it’s very concerning.”

Fires in Hawaii are unlike many of those burning in the U.S. West. They tend to break out in large grasslands on the dry sides of the islands and are generally much smaller than mainland fires.

Even though Hawaii has a wet, tropical climate that isn’t typically at risk from large fires, blazes could become more frequent as climate change-related weather patterns intensify.

The islands have seen a downward trend in overall rainfall in recent years. Drought conditions have reached the most severe level in some parts of Hawaii in recent years, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Drought that is tied to climate change has made wildfires harder to fight.

Two homes were confirmed destroyed in the Hawaii fire. One homeowner said he tried to protect his property but lost the battle as the wind picked up.

“I had a dozer on my lawn, my land, and I tried to make a fire break,” Joshua Kihe of the community of Waimea told Hawaii News Now. He said the fire destroyed his home.

“I definitely need to think of a plan because it’s a life-changer,” he said.

Others scrambled to evacuate.

“I just seen the flames coming,” Waimea resident Kanani Malakaua said. “I mainly got my important papers, made sure my kids were in the car, got my animals — but this is a very, very scary time for us.”

Some nearby roads were closed, making certain neighborhoods inaccessible, but there was no imminent threat to those houses.

Hawaii County Fire Chief Kazuo Todd said winds were expected to increase Monday.

“Our current wind forecast is showing wind patterns between 18 to 20 mph, with gusts up to 40 mph,” Todd said Sunday night, “and so while throughout the evening our crews will be working to build fire breaks with dozers and back burns, this temporary lift on the mandatory evacuation may have to be reinforced later on due to prevailing weather patterns.”

According to the National Weather Service, strong winds and generally dry conditions will continue throughout the islands on Monday. The gusts will begin to ease Tuesday.

The fire chief said nearby communities could be inundated with smoke and that anyone with health or breathing problems should find somewhere else to stay.

Roth, the Big Island mayor, said the way the wind comes through the area makes it difficult to fight the flames and that officials and residents must stay vigilant.

“The winds kind of swirl, so they’ll be coming at one direction for a couple of minutes and then all of a sudden, they’re blowing in a different direction; that makes it really very difficult to fight a fire when you have swirling winds,” Roth said.

Several wildfires also were burning in drought-stricken California and Oregon.

Containment on Monday reached 35% for California’s largest, the Dixie Fire, which covered about 388 square miles (1,005 square kilometers) in mountains where 45 homes and other buildings have been destroyed.

A mandatory evacuation order was issued Monday for Greenville, a town of about 1,000 people, as gusts pushed flames through Plumas and Butte counties in Northern California.

Other evacuation orders and warnings were lifted over the weekend for several areas in Northern California but an estimated 3,000 homes remained threatened by the Dixie Fire as winds pushed flames through dry fuels on remote hillsides.

Over the weekend, a lightning-sparked wildfire threatened remote homes along the Trinity River in California’s Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The 5-square-mile (13-square-mile) McFarland Fire was 5% contained Monday.

In southern Oregon, lightning struck parched forests hundreds of times in 24 hours, igniting some 50 new wildfires as the nation’s largest blaze burned less than 100 miles (161 kilometers) away, officials said Monday.

Firefighters and aircraft pounced on the new fires before they could spread out of control. No homes were immediately threatened.

The Bootleg Fire, the nation’s largest at 647 square miles (1,676 square kilometers), was 84% contained Monday, though it isn’t expected to be fully under control until Oct. 1.

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World

Turkey evacuates panicked tourists by boat from wildfires

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ISTANBUL (AP) — Panicked tourists in Turkey hurried to the seashore to wait for rescue boats Saturday after being told to evacuate some hotels in the Aegean Sea resort of Bodrum due to the dangers posed by nearby wildfires, Turkish media reported.

Coast guard units led the operation and authorities asked private boats and yachts to assist in evacuation efforts from the sea as new wildfires erupted. A video showed plumes of smoke and fire enveloping a hill close to the seashore.

The death toll from wildfires raging in Turkey’s Mediterranean towns rose to six Saturday after two forest workers were killed, the country’s health minister said. Fires across Turkey since Wednesday have burned down forests and some settlements, encroaching on villages and tourist destinations and forcing people to evacuate.

The Russian news agency Sputnik said more than 100 Russian tourists had been evacuated from Bodrum and relocated to new hotels.

In one video of the Bodrum fire filmed from the sea, a man helping with the evacuations was stunned at the speed of the fire, saying “this is unbelievable, just unbelievable. How did this fire come (here) this fast in 5 minutes? ” He was not named in the video.

The minister of agriculture and forestry, Bekir Pakdemirli, said Saturday that 91 of the 101 fires that broke out amid strong winds and scorching heat have been brought under control. Neighborhoods affected by the fire in five provinces were declared disaster zones.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited some affected areas Saturday, inspecting the damage from a helicopter.

Speaking from the town of Manavgat, Erdogan announced that the Turkish government would cover the rents for people affected by the fire and rebuild their homes. He said taxes, social security and credit payments would be postponed for those affected and small businesses would be offered credit with zero interest.

“We cannot do anything beyond wishing the mercy of God for the lives we have lost but we can replace everything that was burned,” he said.

Erdogan said the number of planes fighting the fires had been increased from six to 13, including planes from Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, and that thousands of Turkish personnel as well as dozens of helicopters and drones were assisting the firefighting efforts.

In a speech from Marmaris on Saturday night, Erdogan said one of the fires there had been started by children and other investigations were ongoing.

At least five people have died from the fires in Manavgat and one died in Marmaris. Both towns are Mediterranean tourist destinations. Tourism is an important source of revenue for Turkey, and business owners were hoping that this summer would be much better than last year, when pandemic travel restrictions caused tourism to plummet.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 400 people affected by the fires in Manavgat were treated at hospitals and released, while 10 others were still hospitalized for fire injuries. In Marmaris, 159 people were treated at the hospital and one person was still undergoing treatment for burns.

In southern Hatay province, flames jumped into populated areas but were later apparently brought under control.

Wildfires are common in Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean regions during the arid summer months.

Meanwhile, a heat wave across southern Europe, fed by hot air from Africa, has led to wildfires across the Mediterranean, including in Italy and Greece.

Firefighters on the Italian island of Sicily on Saturday battled dozens of blazes fueled by high temperatures, prompting the region’s governor to request assistance from Rome. Some 150 people trapped in two seaside areas in the city of Catania were evacuated late Friday by sea, where they were picked up by rubber dinghies and transferred to Coast Guard boats.

In western Greece, a wildfire that broke out Saturday forced the evacuation of four villages and people on a beach by the Fire Service, the Coast Guard and private boats.

The fire was in a mountain forest 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Patras, Greece’s third-largest city, Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis said late Saturday. Aided by strong winds, the fire raced down the slopes and threatened seaside villages.

The Civil Protection Agency sent text messages to the residents of four villages — two in the mountains and two by the sea — to evacuate. Local media said some villagers refused to leave and were trying to fight the fire with garden hoses.

Temperatures in Greece and nearby countries in southeast Europe are expected to climb to 42 degrees Celsius (more than 107 Fahrenheit) Monday in many cities and towns.

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Robert Badendieck in Istanbul, Colleen Barry in Milan and Demetris Nellas in Athens contributed.

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Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/Climate.

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