California fires: at least 10 killed in ‘unprecedented’ wine country blaze

CALIFORNIA - Wildfires destroy 1,500 structures and large swaths of northern California wine country as powerful winds fuel ‘an inferno like you’ve never seen before’. At least ten people have died in northern California after what officials are describing as an ‘unprecedented’ wildfire that has already destroyed 1,500 structures and devastated large swaths of wine country. Amy Head, the fire captain spokesperson for Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fire protection, confirmed the number of deaths late on Monday.

“We often have multiple fires going on, but the majority of them all started right around same time period, same time of night – it’s unprecedented”, she told the Guardian. “I hate using that word because it’s been overused a lot lately because of how fires have been in the past few years, but it truly is – there’s just been a lot of destruction.” California’s governor, Jerry Brown, has declared a state of emergency in eight mostly northern counties – Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Sonoma and Yuba counties. The flames are barely contained and are threatening thousands of homes and vineyards in the wine country north of San Francisco.

Nine of the deaths occurred in Napa and Sonoma counties. Another was further north, in Mendocino county, officials said. The wildfires, whipped by powerful winds early on Monday, sent residents on a headlong flight to safety through smoke and flames as homes burned. About 20,000 people have been evacuated, including hundreds of senior citizens from local nursing homes.

Entire neighborhoods and a trailer park in the town of Santa Rosa, 55 miles from San Francisco, have already been razed, along with a Hilton hotel, according to local reports.

Officials say the high winds are hampering firefighting efforts in the region about 140 miles (225km) north of San Francisco. To assist with the efforts the country’s largest firefighting aircraft – a converted 747 – has been deployed.

“It was an inferno like you’ve never seen before”, said Marian Williams, who caravanned with neighbors through flames before dawn as one of the wildfires reached the vineyards and ridges at her small Sonoma County town of Kenwood.

Williams could feel the heat of her fire through the car as she fled. “Trees were on fire like torches”, she said. Mandatory evacuations were ordered in counties north of San Francisco Bay and elsewhere after blazes broke out late on Sunday. (Theguardian.com)