Children and grandmother join victims of Californian fires

GRIEVING relatives described their desperate two-day search for an elderly woman and her two great-grandchildren, before discovering they had died when flames engulfed their home in raging California wildfires.

The death toll from the state’s summer wildfires rose to five at the weekend when fire crews said they had found human remains at a charred home on the outskirts of Redding.

More than 38,000 people remain under evacuation orders from a fire that has destroyed more than 500 buildings and continued to rage unchecked for a seventh day yesterday.

Ed Bledsoe described how he left his home with the family’s only car to run errands on Thursday leaving behind his wife Melody, 70, and two greatgrandchildren – James, five, and fouryear-old Emily Roberts – behind.

He told Capital Public Radio his wife telephoned an hour later. “She said, ‘You need to come home right now. The fire’s right next to our house’,” he said. He tried to race home but was turned back at roadblocks.

The children were “screaming for their lives”, Jason Decker, the boyfriend of another of the Bledsoes’ granddaughters, told The New York Times. “The kids were saying, ‘Papa, papa, come home. The fire’s at the back door’.” Then the line went dead.

For two days they searched hospitals and refuges after being told the three had been rescued. But on Saturday, officials said three bodies had been found at what was left of their home. “My babies are dead,” cried Sherry Bledsoe, the children’s mother, after she was given the news by sheriff ’s deputies.

Her children had been in the care of their great-grandparents while she had spent the past four months in jail.

Two firefighters also died last week. Donald Trump, the US president, declared the fire an emergency at the weekend, freeing federal funds for disaster relief efforts.

Almost 90 fires are burning across western states – stretching from Texas to Oregon – but the most destructive so far is the Carr Fire, which has blackened almost 90,000 acres of parched land in California since it started last Monday. Cal Fire, the state fire brigade, says it was caused by the mechanical failure of a vehicle but has offered no further details.

Since then, low humidity, high temperatures and gusting winds have accelerated it into a blazing, unpredictable storm.

More than 5,000 buildings are at risk as 3,500 firefighters and a squadron of 17 water-dropping helicopters try to contain its flames by carving buffer zones around its advancing fronts. By yesterday, they said they had managed to contain just five per cent of the fire’s perimeter.

Anna Noland, 49, is among those staying at a shelter in Redding. She said she had been forced to flee twice in three days, before learning that her home had been destroyed.

“I think I’m still in shock,” she said. “It’s just unbelievable knowing you don’t have a house to go back to.”