California fires force thousands to flee

LOS ANGELES: Some of California’s largest ever fires raged across the state on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands from their homes as the governor called for international help to fight the blazes.

About 12,000 lightning strikes hit across the state in 72 hours, officials said, sparking the fires that left thick smoke blanketing large areas of central and northern California.

"We simply haven’t seen anything like this in many, many years," California governor Gavin Newsom said on Friday.

The two largest blazes -- dubbed the SCU Lightening Complex and the LNU Lightening Complex -- had burned a total of just under 600,000 acres (240,000 hectares) and nearly 500 structures.

Wineries in the famed Napa and Sonoma regions, which are still reeling from blazes in recent years, are under threat by the SCU Complex -- the 10th largest fire recorded. Five deaths have been linked to the latest flare-ups, with four bodies recovered on Thursday, including three from a burned house in a rural area of Napa County.

Nature reserves were also ravaged. The Big Basin Redwoods State Park said in a statement that some of its historic buildings had been destroyed by flames.

The park, where giant redwood trees of well over 500 years old can be found, was "extensively damaged" it said.

Scorching temperatures and bone-dry conditions had spurred the flames, Cal Fire’s assistant deputy director Daniel Berlant said, though some progress at containing the fires had been made.

Temperatures were expected to cool slightly at the weekend, he added, but there was potential for more ignitions as early as Sunday evening.

"We could again experience a lightning storm so that has us remaining on high alert," Berlant said.

About 119,000 people have been evacuated from the area, with many struggling to find shelter and hesitating to go to centers set up by authorities because of coronavirus risks.

Some in counties south of San Francisco opted to sleep in trailers along the Pacific Ocean as they fled nearby fires, while tourists in Santa Cruz County were urged to leave to free up accommodation for those evacuating their houses.

Fire crews, surveillance equipment and other firefighting hardware was coming in from several states including Oregon, New Mexico and Texas, to fight the fires Governor Newsom told reporters on Friday.