19,000 people forced to evacuate their homes
In the state of Colorado, in the United States, thousands of people had to evacuate their homes due to major fires that took place on Saturday evening.
In Boulder, Colorado, firefighters are battling blazes that forced 19,000 people to evacuate their homes.
AFP
The fire is now “21% contained”, said Mike Smith, a fire department official, at a press conference, adding that no injuries were reported for the time being and that no building was damaged. had been destroyed. But with such fires well before the start of the more flaming summer, “we are a bit worried about the coming season,” he said.
“Current (weather) conditions are unusually hot, dry, and windy for the season,” Daniel Swain, a meteorologist at UCLA University, observed on Twitter on Saturday.
According to the US Weather Service (NWS) in Boulder, heat close to records, but less intense than the day before, is still expected on Sunday.
In December, massive fires had destroyed entire neighborhoods in this part of Colorado, an unusual phenomenon during the winter. Hundreds of homes had gone up in smoke, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee.
The fires, recurring in this part of the United States, have been particularly devastating in recent years, California and Oregon suffering unprecedented fires.
Like much of the American West, Colorado, an already arid state, has been struggling with exceptional drought for several years. With global warming, the intensity and frequency of episodes of drought and heat waves are likely to increase further, continuing to create ideal conditions for forest or bush fires.
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