Violent wildfire jumps a major river, enters California city home to over 90,000

After leaping over California’s Sacramento River, the swiftly-moving Carr Fire entered the City of Redding, home to more than 90,000 people, on Thursday night.

The firestorm melted transmission lines, sent a towering, mushroom-like cloud into the sky, and prompted the evacuation of entire communities in the western part of the city. And two people have already lost their lives while fighting the fire.

“It easily moved across the river,” Brenda Belongie, lead meteorologist of the U.S. Forest Service’s Predictive Services in Northern California, who works and lives in Redding, said in an interview. Read more…

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