Published on : 24/07/2022 – 08:07Modified : 24/07/2022 – 21:18
The United States is facing an extreme heat wave this weekend, with temperatures expected to peak on Sunday, while the state of California suffers the damage of an “explosive” wildfire, threatening in particular Yosemite National Park and its giant sequoias.
After Europe and India, the United States. A wave of “extreme heat” is hitting tens of millions of Americans this weekend, with many temperature records expected in the central and northeast and a wildfire spreading alarmingly in California.
It has been ravaging the Californian forest since Friday and continued to spread on Sunday July 24, causing the evacuation of thousands of people.
The “Oak Fire” – described as “explosive” by authorities – broke out Friday in Mariposa County, near Yosemite National Park and its giant sequoias.
Favored by ‘extreme drought’, winds and rising temperatures, the blaze, fought by some 2,000 firefighters, has burned at least 6,313 hectares of forest, destroyed 10 properties, damaged five others and threatened more than 2 500, told AFP a spokeswoman for this department.
More than 6,000 people evacuated
Officials quoted by the Los Angeles Times newspaper estimated that it would probably take a week to circumscribe it.
More than 6,000 people were evacuated, according to a spokesperson for the California fire department, adding that employees from various departments were flocking from all over the state to lend a hand.
California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a “state of emergency” in Mariposa County on Saturday, due to a situation of “extreme danger to the safety of life and property”. This allows in particular to release funding.
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According to a climatologist from the University of California at Los Angeles, Daniel Swain, the fire “has spread significantly in almost all directions, […] in a context of high fuel load and extreme drought”.
“The series of relatively small, non-destructive wildfires that have plagued California so far this season appear to be over,” he added on Twitter.
The American West has already experienced forest fires of exceptional magnitude and intensity in recent years, with a very marked lengthening of the fire season, a phenomenon that scientists attribute to climate change.
A heatwave spread to several states
Witnesses have posted on social networks images of a huge and impressive whirlwind of thick smoke rising from the forestlike a tornado, a dangerous pyrocumulus phenomenon that can fuel the fire.
This fire is one of the most dramatic consequences of the heat wave affecting the United States this weekend, in a localized area between California and Oregon to the west but much more extensively in the center and northeast.
Temperatures in these two regions are expected to peak on Sunday at the earliest. “From the southern plains to the east, the temperature will be extremely oppressive,” the National Weather Service (NWS) announced on Saturday evening, also warning of severe thunderstorms.
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Stifling heat was particularly felt in the capital Washington, where the temperature flirted with the symbolic bar of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) which it should reach or exceed on Sunday for the first time in years.
New York was not spared, with temperatures close to 35 degrees.
The temperature could also reach 43 degrees in parts of Utah (west), Arizona (south) and the northeast, according to NWS.
The heat wave has already led to an increase in the number of calls to the emergency services for discomfort related to high temperatures.
“Heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States. It far exceeds any other nature-related killer,” said Joseph Kralicek, director of the area’s emergency management agency. Tulsa, Oklahoma, to CNN.
Heat-related emergency
In Boston, where Mayor Michelle Wu has declared a “state of heat emergency”, providing for the opening of municipal places to cool off and swimming pools open longer, it could be 37°C on Sunday.
This week, US President Joe Biden again underscored the “clear and immediate danger” posed by climate change, “an existential threat to our nation and the world”. But its room for maneuver is limited in Congress and by the Supreme Court.
The planet has already recorded several heat waves this year, such as in July in Western Europe or in India in March-April. Their multiplication is an unmistakable sign of climate change, according to scientists.
In June 2021, an extremely rare “heat dome” wreaked havoc across the west coast of the United States and Canada, killing more than 500 people and causing major fires, with temperatures approaching 50 degrees.
With AFP