US wildfires: Oregon has 'never seen this amount of uncontained fire', governor says – as it happened

We’re closing today’s liveblog – thank you for following along, and please stay safe.

Some key links and developments from the day:

• At least eight people have died and thousands have been displaced due to fires in Oregon, California and Washington.
• In Oregon, fire conditions not seen in three decades fueled huge blazes that have killed at least three people, destroyed at least five towns and forced the evacuation of communities from the southern border to the Portland suburbs.
• Oregon was forced to evacuate four prisons, leading to widespread concerns about the potential spread of Covid-19 throughout the overcrowded prison system.
• In Washington state, a one-year-old boy died after his family was apparently overrun by flames trying to flee a wildfire.
• In northern California’s Butte county, where the town of Paradise was devastated by the deadly Camp fire in 2018, at least three people have died and 12 are missing amid the North Complex fire.
• A dense smoke layer from dozens of raging wildfires darkened the skies and fouled the air along much of the west coast on Thursday and was expected to hover in the region at least through the weekend.
• Terrible air quality led to the closure of Covid-19 testing sites in Los Angeles.
• Misinformation about the source of the wildfires is spreading rapidly on social media, prompting public officials to plead with the public to stop sharing rumors.
• Six of the 20 largest wildfires recorded in the history of California have now occurred in 2020.
• The wildfires could ignite a financial crisis by damaging home values, state tourism and local government budgets, an advisory panel to a US markets regulator found.

A dense smoke layer from dozens of raging wildfires darkened the skies and fouled the air along much of the west coast on Thursday and was expected to hover in the region at least through the weekend, the AP reports.

Eerie orange and red skies across California, Oregon and Washington had mainly turned gray thanks to stronger winds coming in from the Pacific Ocean that helped to disperse thick smoke, which had acted as a filter, scattering blue light and only allowing yellow, orange and red light to reach the ground. From the AP:

• In the San Francisco Bay Area, conditions were expected to linger at least through Friday. The smoke was still blocking out so much sunlight that a forecast for Bay Area temperatures to climb to 90F (32C) instead dipped to 60F (15.5C).
• Air quality warnings also were issued throughout the Pacific north-west, and people in communities from southern Oregon to north of Seattle reported hazy skies and choking smoke.
• In Los Angeles, smoky air led to the closure of six Covid-19 test sites.

Winds could soon send the smoke to Nevada, Idaho, Utah and Colorado, the AP said.

More than 80,000 Oregon residents have now evacuated due to fires, according to the governor, who hours earlier had estimated that roughly 40,000 were evacuated.

The fires have burned more than 900,000 acres in the state so far this week. Brown noted that over the last decade, an average of 500,000 acres total have burned in an entire year.

Oregon officials are now evacuating a fourth prison due to wildfires, with a transfer that could further spread coronavirus within the state’s incarcerated population.

The Oregon department of corrections is evacuating the Coffee Creek correctional facility (CCCF) in Wilsonville, 15 miles south of Portland, Oregon Public Broadcasting confirmed this afternoon. CCCF is a women’s prison that also functions as the state’s “intake center”, meaning it’s a transportation hub between facilities. The CCCF population is being moved to Deer Ridge prison near Madras.

The state’s Covid-19 data says that as of Tuesday, CCCF has two positive coronavirus cases among staff and that 11 prisoners are in quarantine due to Covid concerns. At Deer Ridge prison, the data says there are two Covid tests pending and that 67 prisoners are currently in quarantine.

While the status of Covid concerns at each facility are unclear, there are widespread concerns that any mixing of the populations could further spread the virus, as was the concern with the first three facilities evacuated into one overcrowded prison. Spokespeople for the prisons have not responded to the Guardian’s inquiries about the latest evacuation.

From our earlier reporting:

Washington state’s governor, Jay Inslee, said today that the fires in the state have burned nearly 937 sq miles (2,426km).

“We’ve had this trauma all over Washington,” Inslee said, KHQ-TV reported. The governor was touring the farm town of Malden, which is 35 miles south of Spokane: “But this is the place where the whole heart of the town was torn out.”

Malden’s mayor, Chris Ferrell, said residents only had minutes to evacuate, but said no one was killed or seriously injured. More than 80% of the homes in Malden were destroyed by the flames, according to the AP.

Stunned residents of the small Oregon town of Phoenix walked through a scene of devastation Thursday after one of the state’s many wildfires wiped out much of their community, including a mobile home park, houses and businesses, the AP reports on the ground.

After spending the night in their cars in a Home Depot parking lot, a stream of people walked into what was left of the town that hugs Interstate 5 near the California border. They hauled wagons and carried backpacks and bags to salvage whatever they could.

Jonathan Weir defied evacuation orders as flames 30ft (9 meters) high shot from the trees. He drove his car to the entrance of a nearby mobile home park, where his tires began melting. His home was destroyed as the fire hopscotched through the town of 4,000 residents. He told the AP:

There were flames across the street from me, flames to the right of me, flames to the left of me. I just watched everything burn.”

Jerry Walker fled in his pajamas and only had time to grab some cash. He did not know if his apartment complex survived. “I’ve never seen devastation like this ever in my life. I don’t know how we’re going on to recover.”

For more from Phoenix, follow Noelle Crombie, an Oregonian reporter at the scene:

Here’s another way that the wildfire crisis is impeding the coronavirus response in California, which continues to battle the spread of Covid-19: due to unhealthy air quality from the fires, Los Angeles county was forced to shut down six testing sites today and tomorrow.

The county says residents with tests can sign up for new appointments. The smoke affecting these sites comes from the two major local wildfires – the El Dorado fire burning in the San Bernardino mountains, and the Bobcat fire burning north of Azusa and Glendora in the Angeles national forest.

The death toll from the fires in California, Oregon and Washington this week is now at least eight, according to authorities, who warn that the fatalities are expected to increase.

In northern California, authorities confirmed that the Bear fire had killed three people, and that another twelve were missing. Few details have emerged about these victims. Just south of Oregon, the Siskiyou county sheriff’s also confirmed that one person was killed as a result of the Slater fire, which destroyed or damaged more than 150 homes. Information was not released about this victim.

In Washington state, a one-year-old boy died in the Cold Springs fire and his parents suffered severe burns, authorities reported. Jacob Hyland, 31, and Jamie Hyland, 26, of Renton, Washington, were found with their baby on the bank of the Columbia river, authorities said. They had abandoned their car. The family now has a fundraiser.

And in Oregon, 12-year-old Wyatt Tofte and his grandmother Peggy Mosso were found dead after the Santiam fire burned through Marion county. A local family-owned theme park called the Enchanted Forest shared the news, noting that Tofte was the great-grandson of the park’s founder. In southwestern Oregon, the Almeda fire also claimed at least one victim, whose remains were found in Ashland. Authorities said a criminal investigation was underway in this fire. Details about this individual have not been released.

Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, has reported that in the last several days the fires have burned nearly double the amount of land that burns in an average year.

Brown told reporters that more than 900,000 acres have burned so far, and up to 40,000 people were evacuated. The governor did not have an update on fatalities, but at least three have been reported so far in the state.

“We have never seen this amount of uncontained fire across the state,” Brown said.

As of this morning, the state’s five largest fires were more than 100,000 acres each and collectively were only 1% contained, the Oregonian reported. Brown warned that windy and hot conditions are continuing today to impede the firefighting response.

Misinformation about the source of the wildfires is spreading rapidly on social media, prompting public officials to plead with the public to stop sharing rumors.

“We are inundated with questions about things that are FAKE stories,” the Jackson county sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook Thursday afternoon. Large swaths of Jackson county, Oregon, which includes Medford, Talent and Ashland, are under evacuation orders due to the wildfires. “Rumors make the job of protecting the community more difficult.”

Many of the rumors attribute the source of the fires to arson by political activists without evidence, either to the far-right gang the Proud Boys or to leftist activists known as antifa.

“Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON,” the Douglas county sheriff’s office posted on Facebook on Thursday.

While it’s possible that some of the fires may have been the result of arson or other human activity, public officials have batted down any suggestion of political motivation. The Ashland, Oregon police chief, told the Oregonian: “One thing I can say is that the rumor it was set by Antifa is 100% false information. We have some leads, and none of it points in that direction.”

“We’re not seeing any indications of a mass politically influenced arson campaign,” a spokeswoman for the Oregon department of forestry told the New York Times.

The false rumors, especially about antifa, have spread wildly on Facebook and Twitter. One particularly potent piece of misinformation is an article by the website Law Enforcement Today which cites a single anonymous “federal law enforcement source” who alleges that the wildfires across the west coast are part of a “‘coordinated and planned’ attack”. The article goes on to state, “There are current concerns and allegations that many of these people who have started fires may be related to Antifa. However, these allegations have not be [sic] confirmed.”

The misleading article has been shared more than 49,000 times on Facebook, by groups and pages with more than 5m followers, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned data analytics tool. Many of the groups and pages sharing the article are Republican, pro-police, or pro-gun organizations in Oregon.

The post is outperforming the statements by the Jackson county sheriff’s office, Medford police, and Douglas county sheriff’s office, which have been shared about 23,000 times on Facebook.

Another alarming record to note about this year’s wildfire season: six of the 20 largest wildfires recorded in the history of California have occurred in 2020:

Five of those fires are in the top 10. Across California, more than 2.6m acres have already burned this year.

A rapidly spreading fire in the foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada in California has destroyed or damaged roughly 2,000 structures, including homes and other buildings, officials estimated this morning.

The fire has been bolstered by two days of powerful winds that sent an eight-mile-wide (12.8km-wide) front of the so-called North Complex fire to north-eastern Butte county, the AP reports. The communities that have suffered major damage include Berry Creek and Feather Falls, Cal Fire officials said. The region is about 100 miles north of Sacramento, California’s capital.

More than 22,000 structures are still under threat, including properties in the city of Oroville, officials said. Weather conditions have improved today, but there is still heavy smoke and rapid spread causing significant challenges.

The Oregon wildfires have wreaked havoc on the state’s incarcerated population, with thousands now packed into a single overcrowded prison that was already a major Covid-19 hotspot.

I interviewed families and attorneys about the crisis after three prisons were evacuated and transferred to an already packed prison that has had one of the worst Covid outbreaks in the state’s correctional system. Some details of what I heard:

• A total of 1,450 evacuees were moved into the Oregon state penitentiary (OSP) in Salem, which already had more than 2,000 prisoners.
• Evacuees are sleeping on the floor and on emergency beds throughout OSP, including in indoor recreational areas, program rooms and other facilities not typically used for housing.
• Family members and advocates said problems at the facility were already escalating, with people packed into makeshift sleeping quarters, some struggling to breathe due to smoke, prisoners facing long waits for food and fights breaking out.
• One woman, the fiance of a prisoner who was evacuated to OSP, said her fiance was crowded into a sleeping area in a dirty wing that had not been used recently, and that the prisoners were given small mattresses that they slept on right next to each other.
• All three of the evacuated prisons had pending Covid tests this week, meaning prisoners had been tested but were still waiting for results. One of the evacuated facilities had four prisoners in quarantine for Covid at the time of the evacuations.

Notably, the state’s department of corrections has admitted that the cramped conditions at the facility could further spread the virus, with a spokesperson saying, “We did the best we could … but prison is just not designed to keep people 6ft apart and [the fires] make things more difficult.”

A helpful reminder from my colleague Maanvi Singh that while the skies in northern California look significantly less apocalyptic today, the air quality is much worse.

That means people with asthma and other respiratory conditions already at risk for Covid-19 complications are doubly vulnerable.

At Stanford, hospital admissions for asthma spiked last month in the days after the major fires broke out. Researchers also expect the number of heart attacks, kidney problems and mental health challenges will climb due to fires.

A growing body of scientific evidence paints a dire picture of the effects of wildfire smoke on people, even those living hundreds of miles away. Many researchers worry that those debilitating effects will only intensify the risks of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Wildfire smoke can affect the health almost immediately,” Dr Jiayun Angela Yao, an environmental health researcher in Canada, told the Guardian earlier this month.

This summer, Yao co-authored a study for the University of British Columbia showing that, within an hour of fire smoke descending upon the Vancouver area during recent wildfire seasons, the number of ambulance calls for asthma, chronic lung disease and cardiac events increased by 10%. The study found that within 24 hours greater numbers of people were calling for help with diabetic issues as well.

More from Guardian reporter Erin McCormick:

More than 17,000 firefighters are now battling blazes across California, Oregon and Washington, according to recent estimates.

California officials said 14,000 firefighters are on the frontlines today, responding to 29 major fires:

In Oregon, as many as 3,000 firefighters were battling nearly 50 different blazes, according to the Oregonian. Hundreds of firefighters are working on the Cold Springs fire in Washington state, in a region where historic fires in 2015 killed three firefighters.

For more on the most marginalized and undervalued firefighters on the frontlines, a recent comment piece from a formerly incarcerated firefighter:

The August Complex fire, which has been burning since last month in northern California, is now officially the largest fire on record in the state’s history, officials said.

The California department of forestry and fire protection said the fire has scorched more than 736 square miles (1,906 square kilometers), centered in vast wilderness about 130 miles (209 kilometers) north of San Francisco, the AP reported. The fire began on 17 August as a series of three dozen separate blazes in the Mendocino national forest, which were sparked by thousands of lightning strikes.

The August Complex fire has destroyed 26 structures. The fire has surpassed the damage of the 2018 Mendocino Complex fire, which burned 717 square miles in the same region.

This is just one of many records that have been broken in this year’s devastating wildfires, and the season is far from over. Notably, more acres have burned in California wildfires this year than any other year on record.

A fire near Yellowstone national park in Wyoming has grown to five square miles, according to park officials.

The Lone Star fire could be growing at an accelerated rate due to hard frosts in the evening killing plants and trees, according to the national park, which is one of the most popular in the US. Officials said they expect to contain the fire by the end of October, the AP reported. It began on 22 August.

Firefighters have been cutting down trees and vegetation in the area to try and prevent the fire from destroying power lines and historic sites.

Officials in Oregon are forecasting that today could bring more favorable weather to the state, but the threats remain complex and dynamic.

Images and temperature data from a Nasa satellite suggest that fires at lower elevations across Oregon may be declining in intensity today, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).

Doug Grafe, the state fire marshal, said winds were dying down near the valley floors of western Oregon and that the weather trends were heading in a positive direction, OPB reported: “The system that put us in this place is moving out and that’s the best news I can give you,” Grafe said. “[Thursday] begins a hopeful weather change and gives us a chance to shift from life safety ... to being aggressive where we can to reestablish containment lines.”

These more favorable conditions could continue through the weekend, Grafe said.

Some photos of the damage and smoke-filled air across Oregon, Washington and California:

More here:

The raging wildfires across the western US have claimed at least seven lives so far. Information is still trickling in about the deaths, but here’s what we know:

In Oregon, 12-year-old Wyatt Tofte and his grandmother Peggy Mosso were found dead after the Santiam fire burned through Marion county. A local family-owned theme park called the Enchanted Forest shared the news, noting that Tofte was the great-grandson of the park’s founder.

In southwestern Oregon, the Almeda fire also claimed at least one victim, whose remains were found in Ashland. Authorities said a criminal investigation was underway in this fire. Details about this individual have not been released.

In Washington state, a one-year-old boy died in the Cold Springs fire and his parents suffered severe burns, authorities reported. Jacob Hyland, 31, and Jamie Hyland, 26, of Renton, Washington, were found with their baby on the bank of the Columbia river, authorities said. They had abandoned their car. The family now has a fundraiser.

In northern California, authorities confirmed that the Bear fire had killed three people, and that another twelve were missing. Few details have emerged about these victims.

Authorities across the region have said they fear more people may have died in the fires, but have not yet been discovered.

Hi all - Sam Levin here, taking over our live coverage for the day. I’m writing from Los Angeles, which is, like many parts of the west coast, now plagued by unhealthy air quality and hazy skies. The pollution from fires is much worse, however, in northern California:

Roughly half of California’s population has faced wildfire smoke levels that exceed air quality standards, according to the California Air Resources Board. And the air quality in the state has been the worst in the US this week. Some of the most hazardous air quality has hit the world-famous Yosemite national park, the LA Times reported.

Anthony Wexler, director of the Air Quality Research Center at UC Davis, told the paper: “What’s notable is that it’s everywhere. So no matter which way the wind blows you’re getting hit by smoke and ash. It’s pretty brutal.”

There are 37 active fires, with more than 672,000 acres burned in the state as of early this morning, according to the Oregon Office of Emergency Management.

The Oregon wildfires have chewed through about 500 square miles since Monday, ABC reports, and the destruction and death toll are only anticipated to get worse, according to Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown.

Tens of thousands of residents remain evacuated and the fires have destroyed thousands of structures in their paths, according to authorities, as the most fierce fires are out of control.

“Over the last 24 hours, Oregon has experienced unprecedented fires, with devastating consequences across the state,” Brown said in a statement Thursday. “Our No 1 priority right now is saving lives. This could be the greatest loss of human lives and property due to wildfires in our state’s history.”

ABC further reports:

So far at least three deaths have been reported in Oregon; two in Marion county in the Santiam fire and one in the town of Medford in the Almeda fire.

The Almeda fire, which is located in Jackson county in the southern part of the state, has devastated the towns of Phoenix and Talent, where hundreds of homes and businesses are destroyed. The Jackson county sheriff’s office said more deaths are expected.

The Jackson county sheriff, Nate Sickler, said a criminal investigation has been launched at the origin point of the Almeda fire, where human remains were found.

Many of the fires in Oregon are still 0% contained, including the Beachie Creek and Riverside fires, which have burned more than 158,000 and 112,000 acres, respectively.

Other major fires include the Lionhead fire, which is more than 109,000 acres and is 5% contained, and the Archie Creek fire, which has burned 68,000 acres and is only 1% contained.

According to meteorologists, the skies will still be filled with ash over many parts of northern California today.

“Unfortunately, we’re not seeing anything that will significantly change our current situation,” reported the National Weather Service, Edward Helmore writes.

“Critical fire weather threats persist from western OR into northern CA, in southern CA and a part of the Southwest,” the service said in a tweet, and posting a map that showed red flag fire warnings along the US coast from Canada to Mexico.

In a separate tweet, the weather service advised residents in the region to “take steps to minimize the health impacts from wildfire smoke. Stay inside and close windows and doors. Don’t rely on cloth face coverings or surgical masks to prevent breathing in wildfire smoke.”

While satellites showed a band of smoke along the California coast, fog drifting in off the Pacific created a buffer between the smoke and the land beneath, reducing the smell of smoke.

However, with so much smoke in the atmosphere around San Francisco, temperatures would only make into the 60s, instead of the 90s anticipated, said Drew Peterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office. Similar conditions were expected to hold into Friday.

The devastating wildfires now sweeping across the western US are among the sparks from climate change that could ignite a financial crisis by damaging home values, state tourism and local government budgets, an advisory panel to a US markets regulator found.

Those effects could set off a cascade of events including defaults and market disruptions, undermining the economy and sparking a crisis, according to a report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Reuters reports.

More than 90 significant fires are currently burning across the west destroying communities in California, Oregon and Washington state, and beyond.

“As we’ve seen in the past few weeks alone, extreme weather events continue to sweep the nation from the severe wildfires of the west to the devastating midwest derecho and damaging Gulf coast hurricanes. This trend – which is increasingly becoming our new normal – will likely continue to worsen in frequency and intensity as a result of a changing climate,” said Rostin Behnam, CFTC commissioner.

“Beyond their physical devastation and tragic loss of human life and livelihood, escalating weather events also pose significant challenges to our financial system and our ability to sustain long-term economic growth,” said Behnam.

Good morning, we’re here with another edition of the Guardian’s special wildfire liveblog, bringing you all the developing news about the devastating blazes burning mainly in California, Oregon and Washington.

We’ll also include some analysis, relevant social media posts and the context of the climate crisis, with many of our team contributing, so do stay tuned.

• More than 90 wildfires are raging across the western US, with California worst hit but terrible blazes destroying whole communities in Oregon and huge damage in Washington state, too.
• There are serious fires burning 13 western states, driven in the short term by inflammatory weather conditions and in the bigger picture by the climate crisis.
• The wildfires have turned deadly and although it’s hard to verify how many fatalities there are so far, at least seven have been reported in total, and many more people are missing.
• California’s most severe conflagration in this latest cluster of fires, the Creek fire burning in the Sierra national forest near Fresno in the center of the state, could take at least a week and maybe a month before it is controlled enough for residents driven out to return, the authorities say.
• In Oregon, a series of fires killed three people and forced residents to flee flames, smoke and destruction. The state’s governor, Kate Brown, said hundreds of residences have been destroyed.
• There are several weeks of peak fire season to go and the forecast is dire. Strong, dry winds, drought conditions, fierce temperatures and an abundance of dry and dead vegetation are fanning the flames and huge fires can burst from no more than a spark.
• Major wind-driven fires are blazing in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, as well as the big three westernmost states in the contiguous US.