LOS ANGELES: Firefighters were battling a fast-moving wildfire in the US state of California on Thursday, authorities said, with more than 3,500 people forced to flee their homes.
The Park Fire, enveloping more than 71,000 acres, broke out Wednesday evening, on the last day of a heat wave affecting the region.
More than 1,150 personnel were deployed to fight the blaze, which was only three percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).
As of 12:00 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) on Thursday, the fire had enveloped 71,489 acres (290 square kilometers), according to CalFire.
More than 3,500 people had evacuated the area, Governor Gavin Newsom said.
The town of Chico, under threat from the fire, is located just 12 miles (20 kilometers) west of Paradise, a town that was destroyed by a massive wildfire in 2018, resulting in the deaths of 85 people.
The cause of the Park Fire remains under investigation, according to CalFire.
On Thursday, the National Weather Service issued a “red flag” weather warning for “critical fire weather conditions” in the area, including wind gusts and low humidity.
The western United States has experienced several heat waves since the beginning of June, and dozens of fires are currently burning in the region.
Oregon, California’s northern neighbor, is battling a megafire that is the largest in the country, having ravaged more than 268,000 acres of forest and prompting evacuations in a rural region.
The raging flames have created vast columns of smoke, affecting air quality as far away as neighboring Idaho.
Wildfires were also burning in western Canada, where part of the tourist town of Jasper has been destroyed.
Western North America has increasingly been affected by extreme weather events, exacerbated by climate change.
In mid-July, Newsom warned of a fire season that was “shaping up to be very active.”
Thousands flee fast-spreading wildfire in northern California
https://arab.news/bcyxt
Thousands flee fast-spreading wildfire in northern California
- More than 3,500 people had evacuated the area, Governor Gavin Newsom said
End of US-Russia nuclear pact a ‘grave moment’: UN chief
- Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework”
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged the United States and Russia to quickly sign a new nuclear deal, as the existing treaty was set to expire in a “grave moment for international peace and security.”
The New START agreement will end Thursday, formally releasing both Moscow and Washington from a raft of restrictions on their nuclear arsenals.
“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America,” Guterres said in a statement.
The UN secretary-general added that New START and other arms control treaties had “drastically improved the security of all peoples.”
“This dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time — the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades,” he said, without giving more details.
Guterres urged Washington and Moscow “to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework.”
Russia and the United States together control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads but arms agreements have been withering away.
New START, first signed in 2010, limited each side’s nuclear arsenal to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads — a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
It also allowed each side to conduct on-site inspections of the other’s nuclear arsenal, although these were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not resumed since.
