‘I have never seen anything like this’: Oregon towns emptied and confusion spreads amid fires

In Molalla and other western towns, fear, uncertainty and disinformation gripped residents as hundreds of thousands in the state evacuate

• US wildfires in the west – follow live updates

Hundreds of thousands of people in Oregon were ordered to leave their homes on Thursday as wildfires encroached on their properties. The evacuations clogged highways, emptied entire towns and sparked confusion in a state that has not grappled with wildfires of this size before.

Large-scale evacuations in the state began within the metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon’s largest city. Clackamas county, home to some 420,000 people in the metro’s south, was already under varying levels of fire alert when officials on Thursday afternoon told residents of the city of Molalla to leave.

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