City that’s been reduced to ash

NOTHING is left of a neighbourhood but ash, rubble and burned-out cars after the ravages of a wildfire.

Block after block of Santa Rosa’s suburbs were razed by one of the 17 blazes that have so far claimed 21 lives across northern California.

The city was ravaged by the Tubbs fire, which also damaged a Hilton hotel and destroyed a mobile home park. In its Coffey Park area, Bruce and Lisa Coats looked over the remains of their house in despair.

A state of emergency has been declared in several counties and some 20,000 people have fled, with 2,000 homes and businesses feared to have been destroyed. In Sonoma County alone, 300 people were listed as missing but 110 had been found so far.

And last night Lynne Tolmachoff, of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, warned: “The potential for new fires is there.”

It is the deadliest California wildfire outbreak since 2003 and the sixth deadliest since records began.