PORTLAND (OREGON) • Crews resumed searching for the dead yesterday among blackened ruins left by massive wildfires raging in three western states in the United States, where millions of acres have burned in weeks and "mass fatality" incidents are feared in Oregon.
A blitz of wildfires across Oregon, California and Washington have destroyed thousands of homes and a half dozen small towns this summer, scorching a landscape the size of New Jersey and killing at least 26 people since early last month.
US President Donald Trump said he would travel to California to see the devastation first-hand.
After four days of brutally hot, windy weather, the weekend brought calmer winds blowing inland from the Pacific Ocean, and cooler, moister conditions that helped crews make headway against blazes that had burned unchecked earlier last week.
In Oregon, Governor Kate Brown called the perilous blazes a "once-in-a-generation event", and the director of Oregon's office of emergency management, Mr Andrew Phelps, said the authorities were bracing themselves for the possibility of "mass fatality" incidents.
Governor Brown has said that dozens of people remained missing across three counties.
A total of 27 fires were still raging across 595,000 hectares in Oregon and Washington on Saturday, the Bureau of Land Management said on Twitter.
In California, tens of thousands of firefighters were battling 28 major wildfires as of Saturday afternoon, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The White House said Mr Trump, a Republican, will meet California officials today.
The announcement came after the President tweeted on Friday night thanking the firefighters and emergency medical workers. It was his first acknowledgement in almost a month of a wildfire season.
Democratic rival Joe Biden on Saturday linked the conflagrations to climate change, echoing comments by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The Pacific Northwest has, since Labour Day on Sept 7, endured a string of fierce wildfires that have darkened the sky with thick smoke and ash, creating some of the world's worst air-quality levels and driving residents indoors.
More than 4,000 homes and other structures have been incinerated in California over the past three weeks.
In southern Oregon, an apocalyptic scene of charred residential subdivisions and trailer parks stretched for miles along Highway 99 south of Medford through the neighbouring communities of Phoenix and Talent.
Molalla, a logging community 40km south of downtown Portland, was an ash-covered ghost town after its more than 9,000 residents were told to evacuate, with only 30 refusing to leave, the city's fire department said.
REUTERS, NYTIMES
