California-Wildfire: 21 People Dead And Hundreds Missing.
At least 21 people, destroyed 3,500 structures and left hundreds missing in chaotic evacuations across northern California’s wine country.
Firefighters facing a resurgence of high winds on Wednesday struggled to halt wildfires.
Flames were spread rapidly by hot, dry “Diablo” winds — similar to Southern California’s Santa Ana winds — that blew into northern California toward the Pacific on Sunday night.
The official cause of ignition has not been determined. But electric wires knocked down by those same winds may have sparked the conflagration, according to
Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
“Some of the victims in northern California were asleep when the fast-moving fires broke out, igniting their homes before they could escape, he said.
At least 20,000 people remained under evacuation as the fires raged largely unchecked for a third day, belching palls of smoke that engulfed the region and drifted south over the San Francisco Bay area, where some residents donned face masks.
The entire town of Calistoga, a Napa Valley community of some 5,000 residents spared from advancing flames the first night of the fire, was ordered evacuated on Wednesday evening, as the county sheriff’s office warned that conditions had worsened.
OBLITERATED NEIGHBORHOODS
The Sonoma County town of Santa Rosa, the largest city in the wine country region, was particularly hard hit by one of the fiercest blazes, the so-called Tubbs fire.
Block after block of some neighborhoods were virtually obliterated with nothing left but charred debris, broken walls, chimneys and the steel frames of burned-out cars.
“It’s like driving through a war zone,” J.J. Murphy, 22, one of thousands of evacuees, said of the area around his home in the Sonoma Valley community of Glen Ellen.
Murphy, five relatives, a bird, a dog and two cats piled into their camper van to flee on Monday, he said.
“It’s crazy how in just a few hours a place I’ve recognized all my life I can’t recognize,” he said at a roadside food stop in the town of Sonoma.
In the town of Napa on the first night of a blaze dubbed the Atlas fire, nearly 50 people who were in danger of being overrun by flames were rescued by the crews of two California Highway Patrol helicopters working in tandem during a seven-hour aerial evacuation operation.
The weather gave firefighters a bit of a respite on Tuesday as cooler temperatures, lower winds and coastal fog enabled them to make headway against the flames.
At least 21 people, destroyed 3,500 structures and left hundreds missing in chaotic evacuations across northern California’s wine country.
Firefighters facing a resurgence of high winds on Wednesday struggled to halt wildfires.
Flames were spread rapidly by hot, dry “Diablo” winds — similar to Southern California’s Santa Ana winds — that blew into northern California toward the Pacific on Sunday night.
The official cause of ignition has not been determined. But electric wires knocked down by those same winds may have sparked the conflagration, according to
Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
“Some of the victims in northern California were asleep when the fast-moving fires broke out, igniting their homes before they could escape, he said.
At least 20,000 people remained under evacuation as the fires raged largely unchecked for a third day, belching palls of smoke that engulfed the region and drifted south over the San Francisco Bay area, where some residents donned face masks.
The entire town of Calistoga, a Napa Valley community of some 5,000 residents spared from advancing flames the first night of the fire, was ordered evacuated on Wednesday evening, as the county sheriff’s office warned that conditions had worsened.
OBLITERATED NEIGHBORHOODS
The Sonoma County town of Santa Rosa, the largest city in the wine country region, was particularly hard hit by one of the fiercest blazes, the so-called Tubbs fire.
Block after block of some neighborhoods were virtually obliterated with nothing left but charred debris, broken walls, chimneys and the steel frames of burned-out cars.
“It’s like driving through a war zone,” J.J. Murphy, 22, one of thousands of evacuees, said of the area around his home in the Sonoma Valley community of Glen Ellen.
Murphy, five relatives, a bird, a dog and two cats piled into their camper van to flee on Monday, he said.
“It’s crazy how in just a few hours a place I’ve recognized all my life I can’t recognize,” he said at a roadside food stop in the town of Sonoma.
In the town of Napa on the first night of a blaze dubbed the Atlas fire, nearly 50 people who were in danger of being overrun by flames were rescued by the crews of two California Highway Patrol helicopters working in tandem during a seven-hour aerial evacuation operation.
The weather gave firefighters a bit of a respite on Tuesday as cooler temperatures, lower winds and coastal fog enabled them to make headway against the flames.
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