A punishing heat wave was again forecast to bring near-record high temperatures to many parts of the U.S. West on Monday, as a wildfire raged out of control in drought-stricken Oregon.
The forecast comes a day after Death Valley, California, hit a scorching 54 Celsius, one of the highest temperatures ever recorded on Earth.
But the National Weather Service said the intense heat had likely peaked across much of the region, ahead of more seasonable temperatures later this week.
In Oregon, the so-called Bootleg Fire had burned through more than 153,000 acres as of Monday morning, mostly in the Fremont-Winema National Forest.
Hundreds of residents in the Klamath Falls area, in south-central Oregon, were under mandatory evacuation orders, and the Klamath County Sheriff’s Department began issuing citations to enforce them and will consider the unusual step of making arrests if necessary, county officials said.
The agency that manages California’s power grid, the California Independent System Operator, issued a “flex alert” urging residents to conserve power between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. local time on Monday, after the Bootleg Fire in Oregon disrupted electric transmission lines.
Other states have also confronted fires as temperatures soared in many areas. Along California’s border with Nevada, the Beckwourth Complex Fire had grown to around 89,600 acres as of Monday morning, with about 23% containment, according to the state’s fire incident reporting system.
In Arizona, federal authorities on Monday were investigating the crash of a small plane that went down while surveying a wildfire in the northwestern part of the state, killing both crew members.
Authorities said the Beechcraft King Air C-90 aircraft was part of the initial effort to contain the Cedar Basin Fire when it crashed at about noon on July 10 near Wikieup, approximately139 miles northwest of Phoenix.
The fire has burned 734 acres and is 75% contained as of Monday morning, fire officials said.
The crew members were identified as Jeff Piechura, 62, a retired Tucson fire chief, and Matthew Miller, 48, a pilot with Falcon Executive Aviation Inc. The Department of Interior Office of Aviation Services, in conjunction with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration, are investigating the accident.
