Carr Fire in California claims a seventh victim
Mihir Zaveri
The deadly Carr Fire in California, already described by officials as the state’s sixth most destructive wildfire, grew nearly 10,000 acres overnight Saturday as authorities said a seventh death was tied to the blaze.
The fire, which is centered about 200 miles north of San Francisco, has been one of this year’s most prominent blazes, an emblem of the yearly destruction visited on a state grappling with extreme weather that has made severe wildfire seasons more likely, scientists say.
Authorities said 16 other major fires continued across the state in what Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday described as the “new normal.” Officials said 40,000 people have been evacuated and 14,000 firefighters were battling the blazes.
As of Sunday morning, the Carr Fire had destroyed more than 1,600 buildings and consumed more than 154,000 acres. The fire grew so intense that at one point it created its own weather systems, including a tornado-like fire whirl.
While winds were diminishing Sunday, dry conditions persisted, said Erica Bain, a spokeswoman for Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency. Sunday was the 72nd consecutive day without rain in the area, she said.
The fire was 41 percent contained but Bain said it was spreading along deep drainage gullies, which are hard to reach for firefighters.
Patti Wold, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service, which is investigating the cause of the Carr Fire, said Sunday the fire was believed to have been caused by a malfunction with a camper trailer but additional details were unavailable.
The latest victim of the Carr Fire was a Pacific Gas and Electric worker who was trying to restore power to houses that lost it in the fire, a company spokeswoman, Melissa Subbotin, said. She identified the worker as Jay Ayeta, 21, who had been with the company for about two years.
Ayeta, who was in training to become a lineman, was fatally injured in a “vehicle accident” in a remote part of Shasta County, she said. Subbotin said she did not know the details of the accident.
The Carr Fire has claimed six other lives since it began on July 23, including those of a firefighter and a bulldozer operator. Melody Bledsoe of Redding, California, and her great-grandchildren, James Roberts, 5, and Emily Roberts, 4, died after the fire engulfed Bledsoe’s home.
A sixth victim was found after the fire consumed the person’s home, Tom Bosenko, the Shasta County sheriff, said last week. Additional details on that death were unavailable.
Another set of fires, called the Mendocino Complex, was also raging, authorities said. That system, a combination of the Ranch Fire and the River Fire, totals more than 250,000 acres about 100 miles north of San Francisco.
On Saturday, Brown said President Donald Trump had approved his request for a presidential disaster declaration for the Carr Fire area, which would help bring in federal aid for emergency recovery and temporary housing.