Rains weaken the huge fire that plagues California

California firefighters managed to contain a huge wildfire outside Los Angeles after a tropical storm brought rain and lower temperatures, US officials said on Saturday.

The Fairview Fire was 40% contained as of Saturday night, after leaving two people dead and forcing evacuation orders to be issued, fire officials said.

The flames started on Monday right in the middle of a fierce heat wave. in the American Southwest, they devastated 11,300 hectares and destroyed more than 20 buildings.

The remnants of Storm Kay, which made landfall in Mexico as a hurricane on Thursday and then moved north through the Pacific, brought the rains that reduced the fire.

“The fire has slowed considerably due to moisture from Tropical Storm Kay,” California firefighters and the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a statement.

The authorities warn, however, that the rains added the risk of flash floods and mudflows in areas where burned soil cannot absorb flash floods.

“We can go from a fire suppression event to one of significant rainfallwater rescues, landslides and debris (flows),” Jeff Veik of the California Fire Department’s Riverside unit warned Friday.

The western United States has been facing a historic drought for more than two decades that scientists attribute to climate change caused by human activity.

Much of the countryside in this region is parched and overgrown with weeds, which creates the conditions for rapid and destructive fires.