Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
DEATHS RISE AS CALIFORNIA FIRES RAGE
100,000 acres ablaze; scores of people missing
More than a dozen are dead, 150 missing and thousands forced to evacuate in northern California as firefighters made little progress in their efforts to contain the blazes. Residents in several areas of California on Tuesday fled fire, smoke and ash as homes were engulfed. More than 100,000 acres of the state are burning, much of it in wine country. The Trump administration has vowed aid as it officially declared California a disaster area.
SONOMA, Calif. — The death toll from the Northern California fires continued to rise Tuesday, reaching a confirmed total of 15 as multiple fires scorched upward of 100,000 acres and battered the region’s lifeblood wine industry.
Sonoma County alone has received about 200 reports of missing people since Sunday night, and sheriff’s officials have located 45 of those people, said county spokeswoman Maggie Fleming.
The majority of the fatalities are from Sonoma County, where huge swaths of the Santa Rosa were leveled by the Tubbs fire. Nine people have died in Sonoma County as of 11 a.m. Tuesday, Fleming said. Two people have died in Napa County, three in Mendocino County and one in Yuba County, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officials said.
As firefighters continued to battle one of the worst firestorms in California history, federal officials vowed to help.
Vice President Mike Pence said in a visit to California’s emergency management headquarters that President Donald Trump has approved a “major disaster declaration” for California. When he spoke, 13 people had been confirmed dead.
“Let me first say our hearts and the hearts of every American go out to the families of the 13 who’ve lost their lives,” he said. “They are in our prayers.”
As of 7 a.m. Tuesday, the two biggest blazes — the Tubbs fire and the Atlas Peak fire in Napa County — had burned 27,000 and 25,000 acres, respectively, said Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant. Both fires were uncontained, he said.
“Though our containment numbers haven’t gone up just yet, we’ve at least been able to hold these fires and keep them at their current acreage,” Berlant said.
Some of the smaller fires had some containment as of Monday night, he said: The 2,500-acre Sulphur fire in Lake County was 10 percent contained, and the 2,000acre 37 fire in Sonoma County was 15 percent contained.
About 20,000 people evacuated Sunday night and Monday, and there were additional evacuations in the Tubbs fire area and in Yuba County overnight, Berlant said.
Winds of up to 50 mph Sunday night helped spread the flames.
“Overnight, the wind that had fanned these fires had really decreased, and that gave us an opportunity to really take a stand against these fires,” Berlant said early Tuesday.
But the cool and quiet of night did not stymie the progress of the Atlas fire, which stretched across the hills east of Napa and sparked a chain of more fires to the west.
“They continue to move. They were moving all night,” burning more structures in their wake, Cal Fire incident commander Kevin Lawson said Tuesday morning.
On Tuesday, the Atlas fire was moving down the east side of a ridge into Solano County and threatening residents of Green Valley. The Partrick fire southwest of Napa was pushing toward heavily populated areas, and emergency planners warned that the fire could grow.
A few miles north, the community of Glen Ellen continued to be threatened by the Nuns fire burning in the Mayacamas Mountains.
Fire behavior specialist Jon Heggie told crews heading out at dawn Tuesday to be prepared for the fires to turn north and east into dry brush “with 80 percent to 90 percent probability of ignition.”
Several thousand firefighters from across the state are battling the blazes, Berlant said.
In Santa Rosa, the Tubbs fire leveled an entire neighborhood, burned a Hilton hotel, turned big-box stores into smoking ruins and prompted the evacuation of two hospitals.