Northern California wildfires wipe out more than 180 homes
MIDDLETOWN,
Calif. (AP) -- Two of
California's fastest-burning wildfires in decades overtook several
Northern California towns, destroying more than
180 homes and sending residents fleeing Sunday on highways lined with buildings, guardrails and cars still in flames. At least
100 homes were destroyed by a wildfire north of
San Francisco in
Lake County that raced through dry brush and exploded in size within hours, officials said. The devastation comes after a separate wildfire to the southeast destroyed at least 81 homes. Residents fled from
Middletown, dodging smoldering telephone poles, downed power lines and fallen trees as they drove through billowing smoke.
Whole blocks of houses were burned in parts of the town of more than 1,
000 residents that lies about 20 miles north of the famed
Napa Valley. On the west side of town, house after house was burned to their foundations, with only charred appliances and twisted metal garage doors still recognizable. Firefighters on Sunday afternoon could be seen driving around flaming utility poles to put out spot fires. Homeowner
Justin Galvin, 33, himself a firefighter, stood alone at his house, poking its shin-high, smoking ruins with a piece of scrap metal. "This is my home. Or it was," said Galvin, who spent all night fighting another massive fire in the
Sierra Nevada foothills.
Wind gusts that reached up to 30 miles per hour sent embers raining down on homes and made it hard for firefighters to stop the Lake County blaze from advancing,
California Department of
Forest Protection spokesman
Daniel Berlant said. Four firefighters who are members of a helicopter crew suffered second-degree burns during the initial attack on the fire Saturday afternoon. They remained hospitalized in stable condition Sunday, Berlant said. There's no official tally of the destruction yet because firefighters are focused on new evacuation orders and on residents' safety, he said.
People were ordered Sunday to evacuate a stretch along
Highway 281, including
Clear Lake Riviera, a town with about 3,000 residents, Cal
Fire said.
George Escalona told
The Associated Press that in some areas of town "there is nothing but burned houses, burned cars," adding that all he had left were the clothes he was wearing. The 78-square-mile fire erupted Saturday afternoon and rapidly chewed through brush and trees parched from several years of drought. Entire towns as well as residents along a 35-mile stretch of
State Route 29 were evacuated. Gov.
Jerry Brown on Sunday declared a state of emergency to free up resources.
Brown had already declared a state of emergency for a separate 102-square-mile wildfire about 70 miles southeast of
Sacramento that has destroyed at least 81 homes and turned the grassy, tree-studded Sierra Nevada foothills an eerie white. Fire officials had earlier counted 86 homes destroyed, but issued the new figure
Sunday morning. Crews increased containment on that blaze to 25 percent. The fire, which broke out on Wednesday, was threatening about 6,400 more buildings.
Mark Ghilarducci, director of the
Governor's
Office of Emergency Services, said this summer's fires are the most volatile he has seen in 30 years of emergency response work. The main cause behind the fast-spreading fires is dry conditions from the four-year drought, he said. "
The bushes, the trees have absolutely no moisture in them, and the humidities are so low that we are seeing these 'fire starts' just erupt into conflagrations," Ghilarducci said, according to the
Sacramento Bee. Lake County saw devastation in just the last two months. In late July, a wildfire east of
Clear Lake destroyed 43 homes as it spread across
109 square miles. As firefighters drew close to surrounding that blaze, another fire erupted several miles from the community of
Lower Lake on Aug. 9 and more than doubled in size overnight. Residents in the area had to evacuate from their homes two times in as many weeks.
East of
Fresno, the largest wildfire in the state continued to march westward and away from the
Giant Sequoia trees, fire spokesman
Dave Schmitt said. The fire, which was sparked by lightning on July 31, has charred 203 square miles and was 31 percent contained Sunday, the
U.S. Forest Service said. Firefighters have maintained a precautionary line around
Grant Grove, an ancient grove of Giant Sequoia trees, and set prescribed burns to keep the flames from overrunning it. Some fire came through the area but it hasn't done much harm, fire spokesman
Frank Mosbacher told the
Fresno Bee. The grove is named for the towering
General Grant tree that stands 268 feet tall. There are dozens of
Sequoia groves in the
Sierra Nevada, and some trees are 3,000 years old.
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