Help arrives in wine country
Crews from nine states, Canada and Australia arrive
SANTA ROSA, CALIF. — 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 34, making this the deadliest week of wildfires in California history.
Seventeen large fires were still burning across northern California, with more than 9,000 firefighters attacking the flames.
“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.
With hundreds still missing, the death toll was expected to keep rising. Individual fires including a 1991 blaze in the hills around Oakland 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.
Dozens of search-and-rescue personnel at a mobile home park in Santa Rosa carried out the grim task Friday of searching for 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 and five dogs trained to sniff out human remains.
Authorities have said that some victims were so badly burned they were identified only by metal surgical implants found in the ashes that have ID numbers on them.
The influx of outside help offered critical relief to firefighters who have been working with little rest since the blazes started.
“It’s like pulling teeth to get firefighters and law enforcement to disengage from what they are doing out there,” CalFire’s Napa chief Barry Biermann said. “They are truly passionate about what they are doing to help the public, but resources are coming in. That’s why you are seeing the progress we’re making.”
In addition to manpower, equipment has poured in. Crews were using 840 fire engines from across California and another 170 sent from around the country.
Before dawn, four fire trucks rolled out of Eastside Fire and Rescue in Issaquah, Wash., part of three King County strike teams. The 50 firefighters rolled south for an 18-day deployment.
“These guys are trained in wildland fires, and this is what they love to do,” Eastside Fire Chief Jeff Clark said.
Although they pitch in elsewhere in Washington and Oregon, Eastside has not sent crews to California since 2007.