By: Kyle Xu

When a heat wave hit the Pacific Northwest on Sunday, a nightmare became reality as lightning strikes grew into large blazes of more than 621,000 acres total that ravaged across Oregon and Washington.

This all led to more than 22 fires that swept the landscape in Oregon, with Washington experiencing six fires, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. Other affected areas include Arizona, California, Idaho, and Nevada, causing 11 million people of the Pacific Northwest to receive excessive heat warnings.

However, this sudden abundance of high temperatures and fire risks comes from the thunderstorms that had marched across the land on Sunday and the dry conditions after a heat wave in early July. Currently, signs of better weather are scarce as John Hendricks, an Oregon State Fire Marshal spokesman stated that there is no clear sign that rain will revegetate the land.

In Oregon and Washington on Sunday, 547 thousand people were under red flag warnings, which is the highest level on the National Weather Service alert that signifies that weather may soon lead to out-of-control blazes. Fires have been ravaging many areas ever since early July, and some are contained while others remain dangerous.

The Cow Valley fire of July 11 is now 80 percent contained, the Falls fire of July 10 is now 12 percent contained, and the Lone Rock fire started on July 14th is now 40 percent contained. All of these fires managed to burn across over 100,000 acres of land and are considered severe risks to human health. 3,000 people were instructed to evacuate and 2,900 people were under death risks from the fires. 6,500 residents were instructed to begin packing, but were told to wait for signals from officials about the fires.

Image Credit by Anna Kester