California wildfires blackened skies, killed at least five people and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes, as the governor announced that the number of fires burning in the state has increased.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference Friday that nearly 12,000 lightning strikes hit the state over a 72-hour period and there are nearly 560 fires burning across California.
"Just a day ago, I announced that we are struggling to address the needs of suppressing some 376 fires in this state," he said. "That number has grown to about 560 fires in the state of California. We had a lot of sleeper fires. This we anticipated as the smoke cleared."
Firefighting crews were meanwhile struggling again Friday to get fires burning around the state under control as conditions improved only slightly from the day before.
The largest group of blazes, the SCU Lightning Complex Fire, charred nearly 230,000 acres across five Northern California counties, including Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa, as of Friday morning, more than double the 102,000 acres it had burned through 24 hours before, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. It was 10 percent contained.
The LNU Lightning Complex Fire, charred 219,000 acres across another five counties as of Friday morning, including Napa, Sonoma and other counties in wine country, according to Cal Fire. It was 7 percent contained.
The fire has also claimed at least four lives and destroyed at least 480 structures.
Three of the deaths were in Napa County, and the fourth in Solano County, according to officials. The three people who died in Napa County were found Wednesday in a residence, with their remains recovered Thursday, Napa County Sheriff's Office spokesman Henry Wofford said.
A PG&E utility worker also died Wednesday while clearing infrastructure around the fire complex to make it safe for first responders, Cal Fire said in a statement Thursday. It was not immediately clear whether that worker's death was included in the Cal Fire count of four fatalities in the LNU complex.
A fifth fatality, of a helicopter pilot whose aircraft crashed Wednesday morning while he was conducting water drops, was in a different blaze, the Hills Fire in Fresno County, officials said.
Newsom said at the news conference that the infernos were "stretching our resources, stressing our personnel.” He said that the state would be receiving a grant from FEMA "to help ensure the availability of vital resources" needed to fight the wildfires.
The governor said earlier this week that many of the fires were sparked by a large number of lightning strikes in California as the state grappled with a heat wave.
On Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service in San Francisco issued a fire-weather watch from Sunday morning to Tuesday morning.
"Lightning will likely spark new fires across the region, including remote areas," the agency said. "Wildfires in remote regions may not become apparent until warmer and drier conditions allow them to grow."
Tim Edwards, president of the CalFire firefighters union, said 2020 was beginning to resemble 2017, when the state saw some of its most destructive fires, with more than 10,000 structures damaged or destroyed.
“We are in the same situation but with 10 times as many fires,” he said.
The state has over 10,000 firefighters on the front lines, but officials in charge of each of the major fire complexes say they are strapped for resources. Some firefighters were working 72-hour shifts instead of the usual 24 hours.
With a majority of fire activity in Northern California, that region was dealing with an air quality crisis, as ash fell to the ground from above.
Public health officials urged people to stay inside with windows and doors shut until the smoke subsided. The region's air district extended a “Spare the Air” alert through Sunday, which makes it illegal to burn wood.
At least five people have died and two are missing after dozens of lightning-sparked California wildfires spread rapidly on Thursday, doubling in size in the state's wine country alone while expanding by nearly a third near Palo Alto.
There are now 26 major fire incidents in the state, the largest raging to the north and south of the San Francisco Bay Area and affecting more than 350,000 acres in total.
Up to 62,000 people have now been forced to flee as shocking satellite images show how smoke from the massive blaze has drifted 600 miles into the Pacific Ocean.
Five fatalities were reported as of Thursday night as Governor Gavin Newsom asked for help from other states in fighting the flames back. At least two people were missing and 33 civilians and firefighters have been injured.
Ten of thousands evacuating to safety are trying to do so as the coronavirus pandemic still rages through the state and thick smoke creates dangerous breathing conditions.
Locals have described being 'trapped' between the pandemic and the flames heading toward them. Up to 100,000 more people may be forced to leave their homes if the fires can not be pushed back soon.
California's air quality has become the worst in the world, according to CNN, having plummeted to 'very unhealthy' and 'hazardous' levels.
'We’re in a pandemic and a heat wave, and we don’t have air conditioning,' Kena Hudson, whose young son has asthma, told CNBC.
'We can’t open up the window, we’re trapped, we’re hot and no one can come over to play'.
California has been hit by its worst lightning storms in nearly two decades. Around 11,000 strikes ignited over 370 fires this week, fouling air quality for hundreds of miles and stretching firefighting resources to the limit, authorities said.
Big Basin Redwoods State Park, California's oldest state park with redwood trees up to 2,000 years old, suffered extensive damage to historic buildings, the state parks department said.
South of San Francisco, a cluster of lightning-strike fires doubled in size to 40,000 acres in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, injuring three first responders, forcing 22,000 to evacuate and destroying 20 structures, wildfire authority CalFire reported.
On Thursday evening, evacuation orders were expanded throughout Santa Cruz County which lies within the zone known as the CZU lightening complex.
There was zero percent containment on the fires in this zone as evacuations reached 50,000 people, 48,000 acres were confirmed burned, and 20,952 structures were threatened maid reports from officials that up to 200 have been destroyed.
To the north, at least nine fires raced through hills in California's wine country about 35 miles southwest of Sacramento, destroying over 105 homes and other structures.
Collectively known as the LNU Complex Fire, they have doubled in size to 131,000 acres since Wednesday, forming a 'megafire' 10 times larger than New York's Manhattan island.
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