United States: California firefighters face pyrocumulus clouds
The United States still sees the appearance of many fires. The "Dixie Fire" in California is so important, that it created clouds called pyrocumulus, causing lightning, violent winds. These in turn feed the fire.
California's largest wildfire, which has already devoured the equivalent of the city of Chicago in vegetation, is so large that it is now generating its own weather, at the risk of making the task of the firefighters fighting it even more difficult Monday, July 26, 2021.
5,400 firefighters are mobilized to fight the Dixie Fire in the forests of Northern California. This blaze has only grown since mid-July, fueled by sweltering heat, alarming drought and continuous winds.
The fire itself has created pyrocumulus
The Dixie Fire is so large that it has already created clouds called pyrocumulus in recent days that cause lightning, high winds and in turn fuel the fire.
Tomorrow could be a very difficult day: if these clouds are high enough, they have the potential to produce lightning, warned Julia Ruthford, the meteorologist assigned to the blaze.
Rescue workers have been dispatched from as far away as Florida to assist.
Despite its size, the Dixie Fire has so far progressed mostly in extremely remote areas, which explains why only dozens of structures (homes and other buildings) have been destroyed so far.
Progressing on extremely steep paths, the firefighters are sometimes helped by a train, from which they can copiously spray the otherwise inaccessible areas.
But in these weather conditions, embers can easily fly more than a mile from the fire, explains Rick Carhart, a spokesman for the fire department, and places that host evacuees like the village of Quincy are themselves at risk. It's very painful to watch it grow and grow and grow and grow," said Peggy Moak, a resident of a nearby town.
Three times more vegetation burned than last year
Wildfires are common in California - so common that residents sometimes wonder what's left to burn. But because of climate change, this summer is particularly violent.
A golf course with yellowed grass, boaters swimming in a lake that's a shadow of its former self... In the region, signs of the drought that feeds the blazes are everywhere.
Fires have already ravaged three times as much vegetation this year as they had at this time in 2020, yet the worst year for fires in California history.
According to a preliminary investigation, the Dixie Fire was caused by a tree falling on one of the thousands of power lines that make up the American landscape. The power line is that of Pacific Gas & Company (PG & E), a private operator already guilty of causing the Camp Fire, a fire that nearly wiped the town of Paradise off the map and killed 86 people in 2018, just a few miles away.
