- At least 46 wildfires are burning in
Oregon , including the Santiam/Beachie Creek Fire, which grew from 469 to over 131,000 acres overnight from Monday to Tuesday. - That fire, currently at 182,000 acres, killed a 12-year-old boy, Wyatt Tofte, and his grandmother, Peggy Mosso. Their bodies were found Wednesday near their home in Mehama.
- Family members said Mosso was a devoted, fun-loving mom and grandma, and Tofte was a shy but adventurous kid.
On Monday night, Peggy Mosso called her son, worried. She'd broken her knee the week before, and the timing wasn't good: The Santiam/Beachie Creek Fire was burning not far from her home in Mehama, Oregon, where Mosso lived with her daughter, her daughter's partner, and her 12-year-old grandson.
Officials had issued a level 2 evacuation order for the area, meaning people should prepare to leave at a moment's notice.
Eventually, fierce winds took out the power in Mosso's home, and the call was disconnected. Still, her son, Lonnie Bertalotto, wasn't overly concerned.
"When we went to bed, it was 15 miles away, everyone assumed it was ok," Bertalotto told Insider.
But overnight from Monday to Tuesday, the blaze grew from 469 to more than 131,000 acres.
"At that speed, it's an explosion," Bertalotto said.
On Wednesday, search and rescue teams found Mosso and her grandson, Wyatt Tofte, dead inside their car near their home. Mosso's daughter, Angie, had told Wyatt to run for it, but it appears he and his grandmother had tried to drive away from the flames.
Angie's partner, Chris, had left the house Monday evening to borrow a tractor to help the family evacuate. But the flames then prevented him from returning for hours; Chris found Angie on Tuesday morning, severely burned and collapsed on the road nearly 3 miles from her home.
She was rushed to a hospital then transferred to a burn clinic in Portland, where Angie awoke Thursday to the
An unprecedented and deadly fire season
The Santiam/Beachie Creek Fire sparked in Oregon's Opal Creek Wilderness in mid-August, but it ballooned this week after extreme winds blew through the region. It's currently at 182,000 acres and is 0% contained.
The blaze is one of least 46 burning in Oregon, which have collectively spread over at least 900,000 acres, according to Gov. Kate Brown.
"To put that into perspective, over the last 10 years, an average of 500,000 acres burn in an entire year," she tweeted on Thursday. "We've seen nearly double that in 3 days."
In Mehama, the fire burned down a number of homes and other buildings. Officials haven't yet given estimates of how many were destroyed.
"It's not real. It's surreal," Bertalotto said.
Two other people have died as a result of the Oregon fires as well: The residents of Medford died in the Almeda Fire, which has grown to about 3,200 acres.
"This could be the greatest loss of human lives and property due to
In California, meanwhile, more than 3 million acres have burned – more than any other year on record, with around two months still to go in the fire season. In total, 20 people have died in California since the season began, including 10 people in Butte County this week. The state's August Complex Fire in the Mendocino National Forest, at more than 746,600 acres, has become the largest in California history.
And in Washington, more than 480,000 acres have burned since Monday — more than double the state's total from all of 2019. A one-year-old boy died after he and his parents were found along the banks of the Columbia River; their truck was found abandoned and wrecked nearby. His parents suffered third-degree burns and are now in a Seattle hospital, according to the Seattle Times.
Along the West Coast overall, nearly 100 large fires are burning.
The record-breaking year is part of a trend: Climate change is leading wildfire seasons in the west to become longer and more destructive. As the planet's temperature rises, drier conditions and more heat waves increase the likelihood of fires. California's average fire season now lasts 75 days longer than it did in the early 2000s, according to the state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
"We are essentially living in a mega fire era," Jake Hess, a unit chief for that department, said last month.
A family's loss
When Lonnie Bertalotto's son Coby was a kid, Peggy Mosso would take him on trips to Silver Falls State Park in Salem. There, Coby's grandmother would scatter jewelry and other items she'd collected from yard sales beneath the falls.
"She'd tell us pirates used to come and land their treasure chests down there," Coby told Insider. "It would be like a treasure hunt."
Mosso lived most of her life in Scio, a tiny town of around 1,000 residents south of Salem, before moving in with family in Mehama. A lover of animals, Mosso rode horses and had many pets, including a dog and several cats. By 71, Coby said, Mosso had slowed down a bit, but she still doted on her family and took her grandkids on regular trips to Silver Falls.
Lonnie said his mother liked cooking when family members came to visit, even though she lacked a certain flair in the kitchen.
"She couldn't cook worth a darn," Lonnie said.
Wyatt Tofte, Lonnie's nephew, was "very loved and special," he said. Coby described his cousin as shy, polite, and "just a genuinely nice kid."
"He loved his video games," Coby said. But if family members wanted to go on any kind of excursion, whether it was a quick errand or a big hike, "he'd put down his game, he'd be ready to go."
The family said they're still taking time to grieve and process what happened. Coby said that although family is accepting donations via PayPal, they don't have a Gofundme page, so any in existence are fake.