Wildfires Spread in US; Thousands Forced to Flee

Thousands have fled as wildfires spread across the US Los Angeles region —what ignited the Palisades and Eaton fires, the two main blazes, is still under investigation but weather conditions have helped fuel their spread.

Experts call the areas “the wildland-urban interface” (WUI). “An increasing number of people around the United States now live in that transition zone where open lands meet human development, and it's becoming more dangerous as climate change fuels more intense fires,” Xinhua news agency reported quoting Bloomberg News. 

What makes WUI zones susceptible to wildfires is the combination of open space, parks and houses, says Crystal Kolden, the director of the Fire Resilience Center at the University of California, Merced.

“Many of those houses and subdivisions are laid out in ways that have lots of highly flammable shrubs and trees growing on and in-between lots.”

“Yet despite the risks, more people are living in the WUI. Research shows that between 1990 and 2010, 25 million people moved there and 12.7 million homes were built,” said the report. 

In part that's a response to high housing costs elsewhere and a desire to live in “proximity to nature,” says Rebecca Paterson, a spokesperson for the National Interagency Fire Center, the US wildfire logistics and coordination body. At the same time, studies indicated that access to green space commands higher housing prices. 

That growth “definitely creates a lot of challenges, especially with managing wildfires,” Paterson added.

Earlier, multiple major wildfires raging across Los Angeles County, the most populous US county, has killed at least five people and damaged at least 1,100 buildings, authorities said.

The Palisades fire, a devastating wind-driven brush fire in Pacific Palisades starting Tuesday, spread to 15,800 acres (63.9 square km) as of Wednesday afternoon with zero containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) on Wednesday. 

The blaze destroyed about 1,000 structures, including many expensive homes built between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, and forced thousands to flee with new evacuation warnings issued for Malibu. 

—IANS