Hundreds missing as California wildfires rage
Firefighters made headway yesterday against devastating wildfires in the heart of California’s wine country but said the death toll of 32 was expected to rise with hundreds of people still missing.
Even as crews made enough progress for authorities to begin contemplating re-population of some evacuated areas, they were bracing for another onslaught of hot, dry winds that could fan the fires.
‘‘We are diligently working hard. We’ve challenged the troops to get out there and secure mainly the south parts of these fires in preparation for those strong north winds,’’ Bret Gouvea, deputy chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said at an afternoon press conference.
He said contingency plans were being made for other communities in case the fires spread.
The Napa Valley town of Calistoga faced one of the biggest threats. Its 5000-plus residents, ordered to leave their homes on Wednesday night, local time, remained evacuated.
As of yesterday afternoon several of the 17 major wildfires burning across Northern California had merged into massive, largely out-of-control conflagrations, having burned a combined 89,740ha of dry brush and grasslands. The 32 confirmed fatalities mark the greatest loss of life from a single fire event on record in California, three more than the 29 killed by the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.
At least 18 people died in the socalled Tubbs Fire in Sonoma County, which now ranks as the deadliest single fire in the state since 1991.
Officials said the death toll would likely rise as burned homes and businesses were searched. Many of the more than 1000 people initially added to a list of those unaccounted for had been found, Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano said at the news conference, but 256 were still missing.
Giordano said 45 search-andrescue teams and 18 detectives had been deployed to comb ruined neighbourhoods for more victims.
‘CRITICAL FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS’
Winds of up to 100kmh and humidity of just 10 per cent will create ‘‘critical fire weather conditions’’ and ‘‘contribute to extreme fire behaviour’’ , the National Weather Service said.
With at least 3500 homes and other structures incinerated, the so-called North Bay fires have reduced entire neighbourhoods in the city of Santa Rosa to smouldering ruins dotted with charred trees and burned-out cars.
At a fairground converted to a shelter in the nearby city of Petaluma, about 250 cots were full by yesterday, and people slept in tents in the parking lot as volunteers served porridge and eggs for breakfast.
Yasmin Gonzalez, 28, her four children and husband, a grape picker, were anxious to leave the shelter and return to their apartment in Sonoma.
‘‘It’s horrible to leave your home, and your things and not know what’s going to happen,’’ Gonzalez said.
The region’s health system has also been weakened by the fires, with Kaiser Permanente forced to close its Santa Rosa medical center and pharmacy, and many doctors and small practices evacuated.
Kaiser said yesterday that it was rerouting patients to nearby medical centres.