Peter da Silva / EPA
In California, there is still “hell” on Earth. Firefighters have been “at the limit” for 16 days and the end is still not in sight.
The new “Sepulveda fire”, located north of the existing ones, has brought new discouragement to Los Angeles in fighting the large fires that have plagued the state of California since January 7th.
The new “Hughes fire” also broke out 72 km northwest of the city of Los Angeles. As , this fire, which affected the counties of Los Angeles and Ventura, I had burned more than 40kms2 e was 14% contained on Thursday morning.
Due to Hughes, schools and a prison were evacuated as well.
On Wednesday night, an evacuation warning was issued to residents at the site of the new fire. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Sepulveda has already burned about 80,937 m2.
“This new focus means that the situation remains dynamic and the fire remains difficult to contain, although we are gaining ground”, says the fire chief, Anthony Marrone, which further explains that there are “more than 4,000 firefighters in charge of the incident”, in a “robust” response.
“I think we’ve all been on edge the last 16 days,” Marrone said.
The biggest challenge firefighters faced at the start of the fire was the strong wind, which prevented air support. Winds are weaker at the moment, but are expected to intensify again in Southern California. “Certainly, We’re not out of the woods yet“, concluded the Cal Fire chief, Joe Tyler.
Right now in Los Angeles, about 31,000 people in the area are under evacuation order mandatory and another 23,000 have been warned they may have to flee, the Los Angeles County sheriff said, Robert Lunaat . At least 27 people died due to fires.
“It looked like a cloud, but as we got closer, It felt like we were going to hell“, he told a resident who had to flee the intense fires. “It was quite terrifying.”
