CALIFORNIA — The U.N. has warned that California is on the brink of a “catastrophic” wildfire season with more than 100,000 wildfires burning across the state.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the state is on track to become the driest on record, with at least 6.7 million acres of firefighting equipment destroyed and more than 200,000 homes and businesses threatened by the worst wildfire season in history.
The state has been battered by the state’s worst drought in more than a century, which has pushed fires into remote and rugged areas.
State emergency managers have been trying to contain more than 80,000 fires so far, and authorities are now working to extinguish more than 40,000 more.
Firefighting crews and other resources have been reduced to a skeleton crew of one person and a handful of trucks and helicopters, with few air and ground assets in the state, according to the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Nearly 70 percent of California’s fires are under control and most are contained, but they remain dangerous, according the WMO.
In the past week, firefighting efforts in the San Joaquin Valley, the eastern half of the state and northern San Diego County have all been hampered by the threat of wildfires, the WPM said.
In the latest wildfire to burn through the mountains, a blaze in the western part of the Sierra Nevada, authorities said on Tuesday that they had been able to put out a second fire in that area after heavy rain in early May led to the burning of a number of small timber and brush fires.