So far this wildfire season in California, twice as many acres have burned compared with last year, the worst in the state’s history
The Bootleg Fire in Oregon. Photo: Oregon State Fire Marshall Two weeks after a heat wave killed hundreds across the Pacific Northwest and western Canada, extreme temperatures have returned to a region already parched after an exceptionally dry winter.
In Death Valley, temperatures soared to 130 degrees over the weekend, marking the hottest 24 hours ever recorded on earth. Absurd heat is being felt in more temperate locales as well: With a heat dome camped over much of the West, on Saturday it reached 117 degrees in Las Vegas, 117 in St. George, Utah, and 113 degrees in Sacramento. As of Monday afternoon, over 13 million Americans were facing an excessive-heat warning, according to the National Weather Service.
Farmworkers bore the brunt of the weather, toiling at night in the Pacific Northwest to harvest wheat and fruit as the heat cut some yields by as much as 80 percent. Last week, Washington and Oregon joined California in granting heat rights to outdoor laborers to protect them from temperatures made more dangerous by climate change.
Where there’s heat, there’s fire. . The River Fire south of Yosemite grew rapidly on Sunday, forcing evacuations; as of Monday morning, it was estimated at 4,000 acres and just 5 percent contained, according to Cal Fire. A pyrovortex has been observed in the Beckwourth Complex Fire northwest of Lake Tahoe, which, at almost 90,000 acres, is the largest system recorded in California this year. As of Monday morning, it was 23 percent contained.
The largest wildfire currently raging in the west is the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, which sparked in the Fremont-Winema National Forest in the south of the state. Now on its sixth day, it has grown to over 150,000 acres and is threatening a power-line corridor connecting Oregon and California.
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