The fire-stricken Northern California town of Weed has long been seen by passersby as a whimsical spot to stop and buy an ironic T-shirt, but residents say they’ve grown edgy in recent years due to a new danger: Dark skies, swirling ash and flames that race so quickly they leave little time for escape.
Firefighters survey homes on Wakefield Avenue destroyed by the Mill Fire on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022, in Weed, Calif. – The fire-stricken Northern California town of Weed has long been seen by passersby as a whimsical spot to stop along Interstate 5 and buy an ironic T-shirt, but residents say they've grown edgy in recent years due to a new danger: Dark skies, swirling ash and flames that race so quickly they leave little time for escape.
“Whenever this happens, I get really bad,” Christenson said from the front seat of a car at an evacuation center in Yreka as Felix, her orange cat, napped in the backseat. “I can’t think straight.” That drought persists as California heads into what traditionally is the worst of the fire season. Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
Evacuation orders were quickly put in effect Friday for 7,500 people – including West, who is 53 and has lived in Weed since he was a 1-year-old. He had never had to evacuate for a fire, but now he’s had to do it twice.“It’s way worse than it used to be,” he said. “It affects our community because people leave because they don’t want to rebuild.”
“There’s a lot at stake on that Mill Fire,” Anzo said. “There’s a lot of communities, a lot of homes there.”
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