Two seriously injured after Northern California town destroyed by wildfire
Aug 18, 2021
Los Angeles [US], August 18 (ANI/Xinhua): Two people were seriously injured and hospitalized Tuesday after a wildfire burning in El Dorado County in California devastated an entire town with about 1,200 residents.
Local KCRA 3 news channel reported Tuesday afternoon that two people from the Grizzly Flats area approached firefighters in the morning and were transported by air to a local hospital.
All residents in the Grizzly Flats and nearby Somerset areas were ordered to leave early Tuesday morning due to the Caldor Fire which started on Saturday near Grizzly Flats and spread to 6,500 acres (26.2 square kilometers) with zero containment. There are 1,195 people and 3,642 people living in these two small towns respectively.
Hours later, evacuation orders were issued for more communities nearby, including part of Pollock Pines, a town with over 7,000 residents.
Video clips posted online showed that Grizzly Flats area was burned down by the blaze.
Some 2,000 structures were threatened by the fire in the region, according to Cal Fire, who noted that an estimate of damaged and destroyed structures was not yet available.
"Again, this bears repeating since a lot of folks are apparently still unaware: the #CaldorFire is turning into a potentially very dangerous & imminent threat for folks living in the woods east and northeast of Pollock Pines near and along Hwy 50 corridor."
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at University of California Los Angeles tweeted Tuesday morning. (ANI/Xinhua)
