Progress made against California fires
SANTA ROSA, California — A fifth day of desperate firefighting in California wine country brought a glimmer of hope Friday as crews battling the flames reported their first progress toward containing the massive blazes, and hundreds more firefighters poured in to join the effort.
The scale of the disaster also became clearer as authorities said the fires had chased an estimated 90,000 people from their homes and destroyed at least 5,700 homes and businesses. The death toll rose to 36 in the deadliest and most destructive series of wildfires in California history.
In all, 17 large fires still burned across the northern part of the state, with more than 9,000 firefighters attacking the flames using air tankers, helicopters and more than 1,000 fire engines.
“The emergency is not over, and we continue to work at it, but we are seeing some great progress,” said the state’s emergency operations director, Mark Ghilarducci.
Over the past 24 hours, crews arrived from Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North and South Carolina, Oregon and Arizona. Other teams came from as far away as Canada and Australia.
Since igniting Sunday in spots across eight counties, the blazes have reduced entire neighbourhoods to ash and rubble. The death toll has risen daily as search teams gain access to previously unreachable areas.
Individual fires have killed more people than any one of the current blazes, but no collection of simultaneous fires in California ever led to so many deaths, authorities said.
On Friday, dozens of searchand-rescue personnel at a mobile home park in Santa Rosa, in Sonoma County, carried out the grim task of looking for human remains. Fire tore through Santa Rosa early Monday, leaving only a brief window for residents to flee, and decimated the park, which was known as Journey’s End and was home to hundreds of people.
Workers were looking for two missing people who lived at the park. They found one set of remains, mostly bone fragments, and continued looking for the other, said Sonoma County Sgt. Spencer Crum.
To help in the search, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office near San Francisco sent specialized equipment, including drones.
Authorities have said that some victims were so badly burned that they could be identified only by metal surgical implants found in the ashes with ID numbers on them.