Winds to ease as crews battle US wildfires
Print Edition
WINDS are expected to slow down yesterday, but weather conditions are still not ideal for United States emergency crews battling wildfires in four states that have killed six people and destroyed hundreds of square kilometers of land.
Bill Bunting, forecast operations chief for the Oklahoma-based Storm Prediction Center, said on Tuesday that the powerful wind gusts that fanned the wildfires in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas should ease to about 16 to 32 kilometers per hour yesterday. He said temperatures should peak in the 70s, with afternoon humidity low.
“These conditions will make it somewhat easier for firefighting efforts, but far from perfect. The fires still will be moving,” Bunting said. “The ideal situation is that it would turn cold and rain, and unfortunately that’s not going to happen.”
In addition to those four states, conditions were ripe for fires in Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. That followed powerful thunderstorms that moved through the middle of the country late on Monday and early Tuesday, spawning dozens of suspected tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service.
Kansas wildfires have burned about 2,655 square kilometers of land and killed one person. The Kansas Highway Patrol said Corey Holt, of Oklahoma City, died on Monday when his tractor-trailer jackknifed as he tried to back up because of poor visibility on a Kansas highway, and he succumbed to smoke after getting out of his vehicle. Two SUVs crashed into the truck, injuring six people, state trooper Michael Racy said.
About half of the state’s charred land is in Clark County, along the state’s southern border with Oklahoma, where 1,420 square kilometers have burned and about 30 homes have been destroyed, said Millie Fudge, the county’s emergency manager.
Another 610 square kilometers burned in neighboring Comanche County, Kansas, with smaller amounts of burned land from separate fires spread among six other counties.
The large Kansas fire started in Oklahoma, where it burned an estimated 1,010 square kilometers in Beaver County.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
