California, United States — The Governor of California requests for wildfire help from Australia.
Governor Gavin Newsom says that the huge wildfire that is continuing to burn forests and homes in California are getting difficult to contain. Newsom mentioned that 12,000 fire-fighters have battled blazes on Friday that had caused the death of six people.
As the Gov Newson put in a plea for assistance from Australia and Canada, help was already in the way from several US states as well.
“These fires are stretching our resources, our personnel,” he said.
Among the 560 fires, some of them are said to be the largest the state has ever seen.
The blazes were started due to over 12,000 dry lightning strikes during a historic heat wave. The thermometers in Death Valley National Park had reached what could be the highest temperature ever recorded reliably.
The emergency officials of the state says that by Friday, some of the fires had doubled in size over a day, making 175,000 residents to flee.
Gov Newson says that two of the fires are now the 7th and 10th largest in the state’s history. He also urged the President Donald Trump to sign a major disaster declaration.
The worst fires are currently in the mountains to the south and east of San Francisco. About a minimun of 43 people including firefighters have already been injured due to the fire and it has also burned down hundreds of buildings, while threatening thousands more.
Fire-fighters, engines and surveillance planes are racing in to help with the wildfire from other states including Oregon, New Mexico and Texas. According to Gov Newsome, the assistance of what he calls “the world’s best wildfire-fighters” in Australia has been requested.
“We simply haven’t seen anything like this in many, many years,” he said, adding that an area the size of the US state of Rhode Island had already burned within California.
