Wildfires burning for a third consecutive day on the outskirts of Spokane in the US state of Washington have destroyed at least 700 buildings and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in and around the state's second-largest city, officials said on Monday.
The combined effort to contain the three active fires in the area has become the top priority for firefighters across the United States, including the Pacific Northwest, where dozens of major wildfires have been burning for weeks and worsening air quality across a vast region.
The fires near Spokane have burned more than 3,200 hectares since breaking out on Saturday on the northern outskirts of the city, which has a population of around 230,000 and lies west of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near the Idaho border.
Video from the fire zone showed a huge column of smoke rising kilometres above the treetops while firefighting aircraft dropped red fire retardant over the flames.
Massive clouds of smoke have covered the skies north of the city as the fires consume forest land about 10 kilometres from downtown Spokane.
As of Monday, approximately 64,000 people had been ordered to evacuate immediately, around 4,000 more than a day earlier, according to Benjamin Cosel, a spokesperson for the incident command centre managing the emergency response.
At least 700 structures have been destroyed, most of them in residential areas.
Infrared aerial imagery also indicates that a further 400 buildings, including homes, may have been damaged or destroyed, Mr Cosel said.
No deaths have been confirmed so far, he added, but warned that the situation could change.
"There is a strong possibility that this will change in the coming days," Mr Cosel told Reuters, explaining that as the flames recede, search teams will gain access to devastated communities that remain unreachable because of the fires.
The fate of an unspecified number of people remains unknown.
Around 1,100 firefighters were battling the Spokane-area fires on Monday, Mr Cosel said.
Nationwide, more than 29,200 firefighters are engaged in wildfire suppression efforts, primarily in Oregon, Washington State and Idaho, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.
The agency reported on Sunday that more than 100 new large wildfires had broken out across 15 states, most of them in the north-western United States.
Source: CNA
