California: violent brush fire, 60 000 people evacuated
A brush fire fueled by high winds broke out Monday morning in the Los Angeles area, evacuating some 60,000 residents of the city of Irvine, while California was placed on fire alert.
The fire, dubbed "Silverado Fire," started at 6:47 a.m. local time in the Irvine Hills (about 60 km southeast of Los Angeles) and had already traveled 800 hectares four hours later, said firefighters.
The strong wind blowing over the area, with peaks of more than 100 km / h, not only fuels the flames, but also prevents the intervention of aerial means of firefighting.
As a precaution, the Irvine authorities have ordered the evacuation of approximately 60,000 residents living in areas potentially threatened by the flames. All schools in the area, where the sky was obscured by thick clouds of smoke according to witnesses, were also evacuated, according to Sergeant Karie Davies of Irvine Police.
“It was crazy. Even in the car, eyes, nose and throat stung. It looked like night had fallen, ”Frédéric Tournadre, a French expatriate whose company is located in Irvine, told AFP.
The premises were located outside the evacuation perimeter, but the management preferred to ask its staff to vacate the premises for the day. “Even in the offices, we started to smell” of smoke, underlined Mr. Tournadre.
Several highways had to be cut because of the rapid progression of the flames, without hampering the evacuations. " It's bad. The fire moves rather quickly and so do the closures as it passes (the roads), ”explained Florentino Olivera, of the California Traffic Police.
Weather services have placed a large area around Los Angeles on red fire alert until Tuesday afternoon due to strong, very dry winds that have started to blow.
Similar alerts are in effect across much of California, including the upstate.
The phenomenon is typical for this time of year, but this episode is particularly strong and brings together "the most dangerous conditions for fires that we have seen since October 2019", when the flames caused evacuations at the gates of Los Angeles , threatening in particular the famous Getty museum.
In the grip of a chronic drought made worse by climate change, the western United States has suffered wildfires of exceptional proportions this year, with 31 dead and nearly 17,000 km2 gone up in smoke in California alone. since the start of the season.
Some of the giant fires that broke out in the upstate last August were still not fully contained on Monday.
