Republican Paul Gosar blasts Kevin McCarthy and RNC chairwoman For the love of everything holy

As of Saturday morning, the Dixie Fire was 21% contained, as 5,118 firefightersâ€"including teams of state prisonersâ€"384 fire engines, 124 water tenders, 27 helicopters, 87 hand crews, and 107 bulldozers battled the blaze.

While CalFire said Saturday that firefighters were aided by "slightly cooler temperatures and higher humidity," full containment is not expected until August 20. The blaze has destroyed or damaged more than 280 structures, while threatening nearly 14,000 others.

The Redding Record Searchlight reports Plumas County Sheriff's deputies said Friday that they are searching for eight people missing due to the fire. Meanwhile, displaced residents of the Plumas County town of Greenville were left stunned from the near-complete destruction of their town on Wednesday.

"We lost everything," Jose Garcia, who stayed in the town with his 70-year-old father in a desperate and doomed attempt to save his family's home, told the New York Times. "I tried to defend it to the last second. The fire just pushed me out."

The #DixieFire is now the largest single fire in California history. 432,813 Acres 35% contained bigger than the c… https://t.co/qE3f8BqVKD

â€" Eric Holthaus (@Eric Holthaus) 1628270996.0

The Dixie Fire destroyed much of the Greenville Rancheria, built in the late 19th century as a "safe zone" for Maidu and other California Indigenous peoples who at the time were suffering some of the worst genocidal violence in American history, as well as widespread enslavement and deadly forced relocation, at the hands of state authorities and U.S. colonists who stole their land while settling the region.

According to the Record Searchlight, the blaze destroyed the rancheria's medical and dental facilities, tribal office, environmental and fire offices, and fire trucks and other vehicles.

"This tears at my heartstrings because that's our beginning, that has all of our historical documents... and now it doesn't even stand," Tribal Chair Angela Martin told the outlet.

Have pulled out of Canyondam due to unsafe conditions. Propane tanks and ammo going off, down power lines, toxic ve… https://t.co/uBRtkPgd6X

â€" Stuart Palley (@Stuart Palley) 1628212625.0

While the cause of the wildfire has not yet been determined, district attorneys in Plumas and Butte counties are investigating Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E)â€"whose power lines have caused more than 1,500 wildfires in recent years, including the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 peopleâ€"over the company's July admission that its equipment may have sparked the Dixie Fire.

Supercharged by heatwaves and droughtâ€"both fueled by the worsening human-induced climate emergencyâ€"wildfires in California this year have scorched three times as much territory as in the same period of last year's record fire season.

In addition to the Dixie Fire, four other large wildfires are each currently burning tens of thousands of acres, with little or no containment. In southern Oregon, local media outlets reported that cooler temperatures and higher humidity helped firefighters achieve 87% containment of the Bootleg Fire, which has burned more than 413,000 acres and destroyed over 400 buildings.

As #wildfires continue to consume portions of the western U.S., @NOAA satellites are closely monitoring the situati… https://t.co/g6KVda9QW9

â€" NOAA Satellites (@NOAA Satellites) 1628167283.0

Further north, dozens of wildfires are incinerating tens of thousands of acres in Oregon, Washington state, and British Columbia in Canada, where on Thursday Monte Lake became the second community in the province to be destroyed by fire in the past month.

Wildfires are also ravaging parts of countries including Greece, Turkey, Italy, Lebanon, Brazil, and Russia.

Absolutely terrifying scenes from Greece where boats had to pick up 1000+ people from beaches on Evia after wildfir… https://t.co/X8r4yBqmH0

â€" Brian Kahn (@Brian Kahn) 1628341795.0

On Friday, The Guardian reported scientists at the European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said that last month was the world's worst July for wildfires since at least 2003, when satellite records began.

Earlier this week, the Union of Concerned Scientists sent a letter from 21 leading U.S. climate scientists to President Joe Biden urging his administration to "go big on climate action and to do so now."

"As our nation reels from extreme heatwaves, drought, wildfires, and abnormally warm ocean waters fueled an early start to a projected more active than normal Atlantic hurricane season," the letter (pdf) said, "we are reminded that climate change is here and already exerting a fearsome toll on people, critical ecosystems, and our economy."

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