Live Updates From The New York Times
Updated Aug. 24, 2020, 4:06 p.m. ET
The wildfires have now burned through more than a million acres, but there was some relief for firefighters overnight. “Mother Nature has helped us quite a bit,” one fire commander said.
The Oakland Zoo is among the institutions that have closed because of concerns about poor air quality in the Bay Area.
Here’s what you need to know:
- More than a million acres have burned, but fresh lightning strikes are few.
- Concerns over poor air quality have closed schools and parks.
- Some who are seeking shelter with friends worry about exposing them to the virus.
- Smoke and fire in Napa is almost business as usual.
More than a million acres have burned, but fresh lightning strikes are few.
Clusters of devastating wildfires continued to rage in Northern California on Monday, though there was some relief for firefighters: A turn in the weather did not deliver a feared barrage of new lightning strikes overnight.
More than 14,000 firefighters have been scrambling to protect communities from two dozen major blazes, which have left at least seven people dead and dozens injured, and have forced more than 100,000 people from their homes.
Roughly 1.2 million acres have burned since Aug. 15, according to Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency. Almost 700,000 acres of that have been in the groups of fires known as the L.N.U. Lightning Complex and the S.C.U. Lightning Complex, which have become the second- and third-largest fires in state history.California Fires Map TrackerMaps showing the extents of the major fires in Northern California.
On Monday morning, the largest, the L.N.U. complex, which stretches across Napa and surrounding counties, was 22 percent contained. Shana Jones, the chief for Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit, said at a news conference Monday that firefighters were “making good progress” on the complex. But she added that given the size and complexity, “it’s going to take time to put this fire out.”
Related news story:
California governor calls wildfires raging across state ‘historic’ – live (TheGuardian)
Wildfires lead Airbnb to offer free housing for evacuees (Fox News)
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