SANTA ROSA, California - Fast-moving fires spread by shifting winds
forced thousands more Californians to evacuate their homes on Saturday
as the death toll from the deadliest blaze recorded in the state's
history rose to at least 38, with hundreds of people still missing.
About 10,000 firefighters supported by air tankers and helicopters overhead were battling 16 major wildfires, some encompassing several smaller merged blazes, in areas north of San Francisco that have consumed nearly 214,000 acres (86,000 hectares) over seven days, or roughly 334 square miles (865 sq km) - an area larger than New York City.
The 38 confirmed fatalities, including 20 in Sonoma County, already make it the deadliest fire event in California history.
Some 100,000 people have been forced from their homes, including 3,000 evacuated on Saturday from the city of Santa Rosa, about 50 miles (80 km) north of San Francisco, and another 250 from nearby Sonoma city.
"This is truly one of the greatest tragedies that California has ever faced. The devastation is just unbelievable. It is a horror that no one could have imagined," California Governor Jerry Brown told a news conference in Santa Rosa.
The fires have damaged or destroyed about 5,700 structures, reducing homes and businesses to ash. The fires' death toll surpassed the 29 deaths from the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.
"It's an unwieldy beast right now," fire information officer Dennis Rein said at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, the main staging area for the so-called Nuns Fire in Sonoma County, a world-renowned wine-producing region.
At least a dozen Napa Valley and Sonoma County wineries were damaged or destroyed, throwing the state's wine industry and related tourism into disarray.
For the picturesque Napa Valley town of Calistoga, the winds were a double-edged sword. The town was spared by hazardous winds when they shifted, Mayor Chris Canning said, though he warned a resurgence could pose a new threat.
The town of roughly 5,000 people had been evacuated, he said.
Firefighters from states including Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada have joined crews from California to battle the blazes.
From the air, some 70 helicopters and large aircraft including a 747, two DC-10s and about a dozen air tankers doused flames across the sprawling affected area with fire retardant, officials said.
On the ground, prison inmates were helping firefighters - sometimes digging lines to help contain fires, other times preparing meals at command centers, always watched over by guard.
In an area largely dependent on immigrant farm labor, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they would temporarily suspend routine operations during the emergency, "except in the event of a serious criminal presenting a public safety threat," spokesman James Schwab said in a statement.
SHIFTING WINDS
Ground crews gained on the wildfires on Friday, but drier weather and fast-shifting winds complicated efforts on Saturday, sparking a large new wildfire in Lake County, officials said.
The Nuns Fire, which had killed at least 1 person, was only 10 percent contained with winds threatening more residential areas, Cal Fire spokesman Antonio Negrete said.
But the more deadly Tubbs Fire, which killed at least 17 people in Sonoma County, was 44 percent contained, which officials considered a victory.
"It's cautious optimism, but it's optimism," Negrete said of the Tubbs Fire.
Cal Fire had estimated the fires would be contained by Oct. 20, but Rein said they may need to revise that date because of the winds that kicked up.
US Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, at the news conference with the governor in Santa Rosa pledged more federal aid to the region to help it through the devastation.
Whole neighborhoods of Santa Rosa have been reduced to landscapes of ash, smoldering debris and burned-out vehicles.
Some victims were asleep when flames engulfed their homes, and many survivors had only minutes to flee.
As parts of Santa Rosa were devastated, Calistoga, about 12 miles (20 km) to the northeast, faced hazardous winds that were forecast to push the Tubbs Fire toward town.
Mayor Canning said the shifting winds kept the flames at least 2 miles (3.2 km) from the city limit.
"If the winds shift and come back again, that's a big concern," he said in a telephone interview.
All but 12 of the city's 5,200 people heeded evacuation orders and left, Canning said.
"Nobody was confrontational," Canning said. "When the police or firefighters knocked on doors, most people were already ready to go with their bags packed."
With 235 people still missing on Saturday in Sonoma County alone, and rubble from thousands of incinerated dwellings yet to be searched, authorities have said the number of fatalities from the North Bay fires would likely climb.
The year's wildfire season is one of the worst in history in the United States, with nearly 8.6 million acres (3.5 million hectares) burned, just behind 2012, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SONOMA - Firefighters began to gain ground on Thursday against the spread of wildfires that have killed at least 24 people in Northern California and left hundreds missing in the pandemonium of mass evacuations in the heart of the state's wine country.
A brief resurgence of dry, gusty winds threatened to push flames into the Napa Valley town of Calistoga, whose 5,000-plus residents were ordered from their homes on Wednesday night as conditions worsened and fire crept closer.
Calistoga Mayor Chris Canning said anyone refusing to heed the mandatory evacuation would be left to fend for themselves if fire approached, warning on Thursday: "You are on your own."
Still, extreme wind conditions that had been forecast for Wednesday night and early Thursday failed to materialize, giving crews a chance to begin carving containment lines around the perimeter.
"Overall, we are definitely making progress," said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), told Reuters, adding that the situation was less dire than earlier in the week.
Nearly two dozen blazes spanning eight counties have raged largely unchecked since igniting on Sunday night, scorching more than 190,000 acres (77,000 hectares) - an area nearly the size of New York City - and destroying at least 3,500 homes and other buildings.
Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to panoramas of ash, smoldering ruins, charred trees and burned-out cars by a series of firestorms that rank among the deadliest and most destructive in California's history.
The official cause of the disaster was under investigation, but power lines knocked down by gale-force winds may have sparked the conflagration.
Twenty-four people, all civilians, have been confirmed dead, the greatest loss of life from a California wildfire event since 1991, and authorities said the death toll could climb higher. Fire officials have said some of the victims were asleep when the fast-moving fires engulfed their homes before they could escape.
"We have found bodies that were completely intact, and we have found bodies that were no more than ash and bone," Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano told reporters.
As many as 900 missing-persons reports had been filed in Sonoma County alone, although 437 have since turned up safe, Giordano said.
It remained unclear how many of the 463 still listed as unaccounted for might be actual fire victims rather than evacuees who failed to alert authorities after fleeing their homes, he said.
"The best we can pray for is that they haven't checked in," emergency operations spokeswoman Jennifer Larocque told Reuters.
The fiercest of the blazes, the so-called Tubbs fire, accounted for 14 of the fatalities, all in Sonoma County, making it the deadliest single blaze since 2003, according to state data.
SMOKE, ASH IN BAY AREA
About 25,000 people remained displaced on Wednesday as the fires belched smoke that drifted over the San Francisco Bay area, about 50 miles to the south, where visibility was shrouded in haze and automobiles were coated with ash.
The National Weather Service warned on Thursday morning of persistent "critical fire weather conditions" in the fire zone for the next three days, with no rain expected and dry winds from the north with gusts upward of 35 miles per hour (55 kph).
The Tubbs fire on Thursday was within 2 miles (3 km) of Calistoga, which had appeared to be in the path of advancing flames but was spared on the first night of the fires.
Whether the town burns "is going to depend on the wind," Calistoga's Fire Chief Steve Campbell told Reuters early on Thursday. "High winds are predicted but we have not received them yet."
New evacuations also were issued in Sonoma County late on Wednesday for parts of Santa Rosa, the largest city in the wine-producing region, and Geyserville, an unincorporated town of 800 people.
While the cause of the fires have not been determined, they are thought to have been sparked by power lines toppled by gale-force winds and fanned by arid winds that blew into Northern California toward the Pacific on Sunday night.
Wildfires have damaged or demolished at least 13 Napa Valley wineries, a vintners' trade group said on Tuesday.
The confirmed death toll from the spate of fires stood at just one less than the 25 lives lost when a firestorm swept the Oakland Hills in October 1991.
In addition to high winds, the fires have been stoked by an abundance of thick brush left ready to burn by a dry, hot summer.
California Governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in several northern counties, as well as in Orange County in Southern California, where a fire in Anaheim destroyed 15 structures and damaged 12 earlier in the week.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
