‘We’re going to be a long time in recovering’
Thousands homeless, 35 dead in wildfires
SANTA ROSA, CALIF.
• The horrific scale of death and destruction is coming into focus, even as wildfires continue to rage throughout Northern California.
Thirty-five confirmed dead, many of them elderly. One victim was 14 years old. Hundreds still missing on Friday. Thousands of homes and businesses destroyed, including whole neighbourhoods reduced to rubble.
“We all have suffered a trauma here, and we’re going to be a long time in recovering from this incident,” Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey told reporters.
As authorities continue assessing the damage from the most devastating spate of wildfires to strike the state in modern history, the blazes are still burning.
Firefighters have made some gains with several fires that are no longer expected to grow. But 17 fires, including the deadliest in Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties, were still uncontained Friday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, sustained the most damage, with 18 people confirmed dead and 256 still reported missing. Nearly 3,000 homes have been destroyed in Santa Rosa, gateway to the wine-tourism industry. Among those homes was the one where the late Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts gang, had lived for decades with his wife, Jean, who safely escaped.
“I am devastated by the loss of the home I shared with Sparky for 25 years,” Schulz said, “the memories of which filled me with happiness every day.”
The split-level hillside home was built in the 1970s and had housed a drawing table that belonged to the beloved cartoonist, who died in 2000, as well as some Peanuts keepsakes.
Officials say this is now the deadliest week of wildfires in state history. The death toll is certain to rise as authorities — some accompanied by cadaver dogs — continue to explore the wreckage.
Taken together, the disastrous blazes — more than 20 in all since Sunday, including at least six in Sonoma County — have killed more people than any other California wildfire on record.
Even as emergency personnel battled the fires in and around wine country, authorities began facing questions about the cause of the most damaging blaze, in Sonoma, and whether they did enough to warn vulnerable residents as the flames edged closer to populated areas.
The scrutiny marks the next phase of a disaster that erupted seemingly out of nowhere Sunday night, prompting panic among residents who had no idea that a fire was bearing down on them and emergency workers who said they were stunned at the speed with which the fire progressed.
Mostly, the news was grim. Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano said deputies had begun the task of searching for the missing and the dead, with bodies showing up in a variety of conditions.
“We have recovered people where their bodies are intact,” he said, “and we have recovered people where there’s just ash and bone.”
The majority of the victims who have been identified were elderly, except for one: A 14-year-old who was found near his family’s home in Mendocino County. Kai Logan Shepherd was running away from the fire when he was killed, according to the Sheriff ’s Office.
Of the 10 Sonoma County victims who have been named so far, most were from Santa Rosa, and all were older adults, with an average age of 75, the sheriff ’s office said.
Of 1,308 missing-person reports in Sonoma County, 1,052 had been found safe by Friday afternoon, said Robert Giordano, the sheriff. The whereabouts of the more than 250 missing were still unknown, although it is possible that a number of them were found but not yet reported to authorities. Others may be out of touch because of power outages and downed cell towers.
The Coffey Park subdivision of Santa Rosa has approximately 200 homes, and almost all of them are piles of ash. The charred remnants of one house bled into another, with only addresses painted on curbs to distinguish one plot from another.
Paul DiStanislao stood in his driveway and marvelled at the smoking ruin that was once a neighbour’s home. A few metres away, at his house, even the grass was spared.
“Why am I here?” he asked rhetorically. “Had it jumped the highway a little bit farther, my house would be gone.”