Thanks for following the live coverage today. We’re closing the blog for now – here are some key updates and links from the day: The wildfires have killed at least six people and forced tens of thousands from their homes. Across the state, more than 771,000 acres, an area greater than the state of Rhode Island, have burned. Fires have scorched iconic redwoods within Big Basin, California’s oldest state park. Governor Gavin Newsom said he was working with the states of Arizona and Oregon on mutual aid and had been in contact with officials in Canada. There is a risk of another possible widespread dry lightning event this weekend. California’s raging wildfires have created a crisis at multiple state prisons, where there are reports of heavy smoke and ash making it hard to breathe, unanswered pleas for evacuation, and concerns that the fire response could lead to further Covid-19 spread. Wildfire smoke has created widespread pollution across the western US. Health officials are worried that the smoke is leaving those with respiratory conditions – who are already especially prone to complications from Covid-19 – doubly vulnerable. California isn’t the only state on fire right now – there are currently large fires that have burned nearly 1.2m acres across 14 states. Nearly 12,000 firefighters have joined efforts across the state, as have more than 1,000 fire engineers. Students and faculty at UC Santa Cruz were ordered to evacuate late Thursday night due to the raging fires in the region, a rare order for a major university campus in the state. California secured federal assistance to support the response to the fires in Santa Clara and Stanislaus counties. As more than 550 wildfires rip through California communities, forcing residents to flee their homes and leave behind treasured possessions, there are also an untold number of animal casualties. A heartbreaking video out of Solano county, where the LNU Lightning Complex fire has already scorched more than 219,000 acres and destroyed 480 structures, captures the emotional moment when a local rancher and dog trainer searched for her animals amid burned ruins. “Oh no, Oh no,” rancher Christa Patrillo Haefner says repeatedly as she searches in vain for the dozens of horses and baby goats lost to the inferno. Several horses, which were at a friends house, as well as some goats and pigs somehow survived the blaze — but most of her possessions, on which her livelihood depends, did not. “We were just starting to recover from a house fire where we lost all of our personal belongings in 2018,” Patrillo Haefner told Good Day Sacramento, noting that she has lived through 14 fires in recent years. “Now we lost everything again.” Each year, encroaching wildfires set off a scramble as animal owners hustle to rescue pets and livestock. Some animals find ways to save themselves by venturing into safe zones. Others are rescued thanks to the help of good samaritans, like Ben Samrick, a Davis man who’s already rescued 30 horses by loading them in trailers and moving them to safer ground, like the an evacuation center for large animals that rescue workers have opened at the Solano county fairgrounds in Vallejo, which by Wednesday was home to 60 horses, cows, goats, chickens and emus. Samirick told local ABC10 that animal owners need to prepare for evacuation by having enough equipment, halters and trailers available when time comes to leave. Veterinarians at UC Davis have been able to treat a total of 13 animals injured by the LNU Lightning Complex Fire, including Ava, an 11-year-old draft horse – the sole survivor among six horses belonging to a nurse who lost her home, truck and trailer in the fire – as well as a Welsh pony named Puzzler and an alpaca dubbed Canelo. But animals aren’t just victims to fires — they can also help prevent them. Last year, a heroic herd of 500 goats was credited with saving the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, outside of Los Angeles, who diligently ate their way through 13 acres of scrubland surrounding the library that would have fueled the fire that threatened the structure. One small town northeast of Sacramento last year launched a “goat fund me” to recruit a herd of horned heroes to stave off future wildfires. – Mario Koran Fires burning across western US California isn’t the only state on fire right now – there are currently large fires that have burned nearly 1.2m acres across 14 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center: The center estimated earlier today that there are 92 large fires and roughly 25,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel responding to the disasters. In addition to California, there are evacuation orders in place in Arizona, Colorado and Oregon. – Sam Levin Officials in Sonoma county, which has been badly damaged by this week’s fires, have reported that the federal wireless emergency alert service it uses is “no longer functioning”. The local Press Democrat reported that Chris Godley, the county’s emergency management director, told the board this alert service hasn’t been working as it is intended, including sending alerts to much wider areas than officials were targeting. It is supposed to send updates to phones in a specific area. One alert sent this morning linked to information from the Kincade fire last year, which also caused widespread confusion, he told the board of supervisors. Other alert services, such as Nixle, are working correctly, the newspaper reported. At its meeting this afternoon, the board also adopted an emergency proclamation, which will allow the region to receive more mutual aid and state funding. Nearly 12,000 firefighters have joined efforts across the state, as have more than 1,000 fire engineers. California’s firefighting personnel are “on the scale of a small nation’s army”, climate scientist Daniel Swain recently told the Guardian. But the fires currently ripping through the state are so widespread, that crews have been stretched. During previous, massive fires – crews from all over the state could rush to the region worst affected. Right now, there’s too much going on – and Governor Gavin Newsom has called on the entire country to send help. Wildfire smoke and Covid-19: What you need to know The coronavirus pandemic has complicated California’s wildfire response in many ways, layering crisis upon crisis. Health officials are worried that the smoke is leaving those with respiratory conditions – who are already especially prone to complications from Covid-19 – doubly vulnerable. There’s growing evidence that air pollution could exacerbate the severity of illness in coronavirus patients. Smoke also triggers coughing and sneezing, propelling farther the respiratory droplets that spread the coronavirus. Above all, the fires threaten to put even more pressure on already strained public health resources – with the threat of fire pulling hospitals and health centers out of service amid a health crisis that has already overwhelmed medical providers in some rural counties. Earlier this year, I took stock of the many ways in which the intersecting threats of fires and disease has put Californians in a precarious spot: The wildfires in California have caused major crises at multiple prisons in the state, where incarcerated people have been struggling for months as Covid spreads behind bars and forces lockdowns. Some details from our recent coverage: Dozens of people who had been moved to outdoor tents due to Covid and distancing attempts in overcrowded prisons are now returning to indoor cells due to nearby fires, smoke, ash and pollution. Two prisons were directly located in an evacuation zone in Vacaville, but were not evacuated. Prison officials say there is no current threat and that they are closely monitoring. One impacted prison that was within the evacuation zone functions as a hospital and houses terminally ill people in hospice care and the elderly and medically vulnerable. There are growing concerns that the wildfire response could lead to further Covid infections, especially if people are being moved back indoors or in the case of an evacuation. A thread with more detail here: To put the current situation into perspective: 771,000 acres have burned in the past week. By comparison last year, a total of about 259,823 acres burned all year. That was a relatively mild fire year - these recent fires have yet to surpass the totals from 2018 and 2017, which saw some of the deadliest, most destructive fire seasons on record. In 2018, a total of 1,963,101 acres burned and in 2017, 1,548,429 acres burned. In 2016, 669,534 acres burned. But peak fire season in California is in the autumn when the powerful Santa Ana winds in the south and the Diablo winds in the north tend to rapidly, and some times catastrophically stoke and spread embers into infernos. A heartening update: In the city of Vacaville, which was subject to the brunt of a large grouping of fires known as the LNU lightening Complex, evacuation orders have now been lifted: Wildfire smoke creating widespread pollution across western US The National Weather Service has noted that the smoke from California’s fires has moved into Nebraska today: The smoke and air pollution is particularly severe in some parts of the Bay Area right now, raising concerns about how the fires could potentially create problems for the Covid-19 crisis. Dr Stephanie Christenson, a University of California, San Francisco professor of medicine, noted in a news conference yesterday that the smoke could result in longer recovery time and possibly re-hospitalization among patients recovering from Covid, the New York Times reported. Christenson cautioned that it was too early to say with certainty how the smoke from wildfires could hamper Covid efforts, but noted that air pollution does inflame the lungs. Fact checking Trump"s California wildfire remarks Mario Koran At a campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Trump resurfaced a familiar broadside that California’s wildfires are of the state’s own making because the state has failed to take his advice to “clean” its forest floors of debris. “They’re starting again in California,” Trump said of the wildfires raging across the state. “I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests — there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up,” he said. “Maybe we’re just going to have to make them pay for it because they don’t listen to us,” he added. The argument dates back to 2018, when Trump visited the area burned by the Camp Fire, which killed 84 people in the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history. He said at the time that Finland’s “forest cities” have been able to avoid fires because they’ve spent “a lot of time raking” their forest floors. But the criticism conveniently overlooks the fact that the federal government controls most of the state’s forestland and that state and local agencies oversee just 3%. Forestry experts have disputed the president’s assertion, pointing out that the state’s most destructive recent fires have occurred in grasslands and oak-studded hillsides, San Francisco Chronicle reports. Development that has encroached on fire-prone areas has also played a role, as has climate change, which has meant prolonged periods of drought that’s turned wildlands into kindling. While Trump’s threats to withhold federal aid from California are familiar, so far they’ve proven empty. Last year, when the president leveled the same criticism at the Golden State, Governor Newsom clapped back pointedly, “You don’t believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation.” Newsom also noted today that he had formed a new partnership with the federal government to work together on forest management – noting that the president might not have been aware of this arrangement when he made his remarks this week. A few more updates from Governor Newsom’s press conference, which just ended: He spoke again about the climate crisis and noted that the blackouts won’t stand in the way of the state’s sustainability efforts, saying, “The last thing we need to do is double down on a future that created the conditions we’re trying to address here today.” He pledged to “radically change the way we produce and consume energy”. The governor said the state had prepared for the shortage of firefighters due to a decline in available crews of incarcerated firefighters, which the state has long relied on (despite widespread concerns about the ethics and labor issues surrounding use of imprisoned workers). He said the state had brought on more than 830 firefighters to backfill those positions after some incarcerated firefighters were released from prison due to the Covid crisis. (The state does not allow incarcerated firefighters to continue this work after their release.) Newsom said mutual aid support was coming from Arizona, Oregon, Washington state, Texas, Nevada and elsewhere. Regarding Trump’s attacks on California, Newsom said, “He may make statements publicly, but the working relationship privately has been an effective one.” Gavin Newsom on 560 fires: "We are struggling" Governor Gavin Newsom is giving an update on the fires now, noting that the state is stretched thin while dealing with this “unprecedented moment” in California history. He said it was a challenge to respond to the 560 active fires still raging, which includes two dozen complex, major fires: “We are struggling.” The governor also noted that the state has been suffering from what may be the “hottest modern recorded temperatures in the history of the world”, adding, “That is a remarkable statement of fact.” The extreme heat wave has dramatically affected the entire region beyond California, he added: “The heat dome we experienced … has impacted the entire western United States. Fire conditions have increased in other states ... Our mutual aid that goes outside of the state of California has also been stretched.” Newsom said he was working with the states of Arizona and Oregon on mutual aid and had been in contact with officials in Canada. He specifically thanked the Trump administration for the Fema grants, a remark that came one day after the president, speaking at a campaign event, threatened to withhold funds to California. Countering the president’s partisan attacks, Newsom has tried to emphasize the bipartisan efforts to respond to the fires, including partnering with Republican governors. More than 771,000 acres burned, greater than state of Rhode Island Cal Fire is now giving an update on the state of the fires, with some extraordinary statistics, including that more than 771,000 acres have burned so far, an area greater than the state of Rhode Island. Additionally, there have been 12,000 lightning strikes and 560 new wildfires. Possible lightning event this weekend in Bay Area An alarming forecast from the National Weather Service in the Bay Area: there is a risk of another possible widespread dry lightning event this weekend. Daniel Swain, a leading climate scientist and expert on the subject, summarized that this could begin as early as tomorrow or late Monday. It could affect a wide area of northern California. Fire in Point Reyes grows to 2,100 acres The Woodward fire has grown to 2,100 acres at the Point Reyes national seashore, one of California’s most beloved national parks, just north of San Francisco. The fire was spreading in a remote area of Point Reyes in Marin county, and the popular trails in the area have been closed. The blaze is contributing to the heavy smoke and poor air quality in the region, including in San Francisco. The blaze has threatened more than 1,600 homes and businesses, and evacuation warnings remained in place for nearby towns. This fire also started with lightning strikes, and fire officials said this morning they were in the process of slowing its spread through aerial strikes. Fire devastation, by the numbers As of this morning, here’s a recap of some of the devastation across the state so far: The fires have killed at least five people so far, including three people found in a house in Napa county, a fourth person in Solano county and a PG&E utility worker who died while clearing infrastructure. At least 33 people have suffered injuries across the fires. More than 500 structures have been destroyed. More than 60,000 people have been ordered to evacuate. The fires have burned across more than 500,000 acres. More than 10,000 lighting strikes over several days caused hundreds of fires, including a dozen significant ones. More than 10,000 firefighters are working on the frontlines, but authorities say they are stretched thin. More than 1,300 incarcerated firefighters are currently battling the blazes.