“If you don’t leave, you are dead,” the sheriff representative and state police warned residents because the “pirated” fire was spreading.

In a dry forest in the western United States, a growing wildfire has forced hundreds of people to leave their homes because it has scorched more than 854 square kilometers (330 square miles), which was not slowed down by the hot heat wave and drought on Wednesday. sign.

According to an interagency coordination center in Oregon and Washington, the so-called “Bootleg” fire has spread to the Fremont-Vinemar National Forest, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Portland, Oregon, and destroyed 21 houses and threatened another 1,926 houses. Portland.

After burning for eight days, the fire left a thick haze over the nearby Klamath Falls, a scenic city about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the California border. The local open-air market turned red. Cross evacuation center.

One of the evacuees, Tim McCarley, told Reuters earlier this week that the sheriff’s deputy and state police appeared at his home, just when “sparks and embers are falling” and told His family “If you don’t leave, you are dead.”

“This is the first time I have a wildfire, and I want to tell you it is terrible,” said Sarah Kose, another evacuated resident.

“You don’t know if you will be the one who loses the house, or if you sit there and watch your neighbor lose their house, there is nothing you can do about it.”

The Bootleg fire is the largest of several fires in the western United States, where drought and record heat waves have made bushes and wood highly flammable.

climate change Over the past 30 years, the western United States has become warmer and drier, and will continue to make the weather more extreme, and wildfires more frequent and destructive.The hot and dry weather from Canada to Mexico is Drainage reservoir, Threatens crops and livestock and heralds a potential future Water crisis, The expert said.

There are 60 in total Fire According to data from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho (a fire organization of eight US agencies), more than 404,680 hectares (1 million acres) of land have been consumed in 12 US states this season.

The ferocious wildfire is Pacific Northwest It is threatening the lands of Native Americans, where tribes are already working to protect water resources and protect traditional hunting grounds.

In north-central Washington, hundreds of people in the town of Nespelem on Colville tribal land were ordered to leave due to “imminent and life-threatening” danger, the largest of five wildfires triggered by dozens of lightning strikes on July 12 The fire tore through grass, sagebrush and wood.

Coleville Reserve Alliance Tribe Chairman Andrew Joseph Jr. said that before the fire arrived, seven houses were burned and the entire town was safely evacuated. The reservation includes more than 9,000 descendants of more than a dozen tribes.

Earlier this week, the burning flames of the high-voltage power corridor connecting Oregon’s power grid with California caused a reduction in power supply, prompting the agency that manages the California power grid to issue a power saving alert.

Last year, late-summer wildfires fueled by gusts and hot, dry terrain killed more than 3 people in California, Oregon, and Washington, and scorched more than 4.1 million hectares (10.2 million acres) of land.