Newsmax – September 11, 2020
Around half a million people in Oregon, or 10% of the state’s population, were ordered to evacuate on Friday and residents of its largest city, Portland, were told to be ready to go as extreme wind-driven wildfires scorched U.S. West Coast states, causing at least 24 deaths.
About 100 wildfires have burned an area nearly as large as the state of New Jersey across the U.S. West, creating smoke that gave California, Oregon and Washington state the worst air quality levels in the world.
Oregon bore the brunt of the destruction, with search teams still unable to enter areas where fires burned through multiple small communities in the Cascade mountains.
Molalla, a community about 25 miles (40 km) south of downtown Portland, was an ash-covered ghost town after its more than 9,000 residents were told to evacuate, only 30 refusing to leave, the city’s fire department said.
The logging town was on the front line of a vast evacuation zone stretching north to within three miles (4.8 km) of downtown Portland, with Clackamas County police setting a 10 p.m. PT (0500 on Saturday GMT) curfew to deter “possible increased criminal activity.”
About 10 percent of the state’s population faced red “GO!” warnings to leave homes immediately, while hundreds of thousands more were under yellow “BE SET” warnings, to leave at a moment’s notice, or green “BE READY” alerts.
Towns southeast of Portland were at the mercy of wind direction and strength after two of Oregon’s largest wildfires merged into one.