Communities in the U.S. West and Canada were under siege from raging wildfires on Friday, as a fast-moving blaze sparked by lightning sent people fleeing on fire-ringed roads in rural Idaho and a human-caused inferno forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes in northern California.
In eastern Oregon, a pilot was found dead in a small air tanker plane that crashed while fighting one of the many wildfires spreading across several Western states. More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometers) were burning in the U.S.
on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some were caused by the weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures record heat and bone-dry conditions. Others were human-caused, like the Park Fire burning in Butte County, California, just northwest of the community of Paradise where the 2018 Camp Fire killed 85 people and incinerated thousands of homes.
Carli Parker is one of hundreds who fled their homes this week as the Park Fire pushed close. Parker decided to leave with her Forest Ranch residence with her family when the fire began burning across the street. She has previously been forced out of two homes by fire, and she said she had little hope that her residence would remain unscathed.
“I think I felt like I was in danger because the police had come to our house because we had signed up for early evacuation warnings, and they were running to their vehicle .
