Massive wildfires sweeping through parts of California have killed at
least 15 people and damaged more than 1,500 residences and other
buildings, according to authorities.
Interested in California Wildfires?
Add California Wildfires as an interest to
stay up to date on the latest California Wildfires news, video, and
analysis from ABC News.
Firefighters were battling 17 fires across multiple counties in the
state as of late Monday, authorities said. Intensified by strong winds,
the fires charred about 115,000 acres of land, destroyed at least 1,500
buildings and forced nearly 20,000 residents to evacuate.
St. Joseph Health said about 170 patients have been treated, many for
burns and smoke inhalation, at three of its hospitals, including two in
Sonoma County, where at least seven people died of fire-related
injuries. Authorities have received up to 150 missing person reports,
according to one Sonoma County official.
Sonoma County Sgt. Spencer Crum told ABC News chief anchor George
Stephanopoulos today on "GMA" that the county has asked everyone to
"help us out" in the battle against the blazes.
The shifting gusts that dogged firefighters have eased, he added.
"The night before this, we had 60 mph winds, which is the reason why you have such devastation here," Crum said.
He confirmed that the alert system put in place gave residents ample time to evacuate and likely prevented many deaths.
"We have a subscription service where we can alert our residents, and we
did that right away, trying to notify everybody where the fire was,
where it was going and how fast it was going, and I think it saved a lot
of lives," Crum said.
Officials with the California Highway Patrol described one of the dead
as an elderly woman who was blind and hard of hearing, according to ABC's San Francisco station, KGO.
The woman was found dead in the driveway of her home in Santa Rosa,
according to the officials, who suspected that she was trying to escape
the flames when she died.
Details on the other victims have not been released yet.
Two of the largest fires, dubbed the Tubbs and Atlas fires by
authorities, burned a combined 52,000 acres of land in Sonoma and Napa
counties.
In Anaheim, 1,000 firefighters were mobilized to fight a blaze that
burned an estimated 6,000 acres and destroyed at least 24 homes and
businesses. At least 3,000 residents were evacuated in and around
Anaheim, and more than 5,000 structures were threatened by the flames.
California Gov. Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency for Napa, Sonoma and Yuba counties.
With the flames sweeping through communities, some area hospitals have
been evacuated. Evacuations were also issued for surrounding counties
that are under threat, according to the Napa Valley Sheriff's Office.
Many residents have been warned not to return to their homes until further notice.
Jeff Okrepkie, a resident of Santa Rosa, said he fled his home of five
years knowing that it could very well be leveled when he returned.
"All that good stuff, I'm never going to see it again," he told KGO on Monday.
He said he and his wife tried their best to gather their most precious
documents, photos and mementos, but it was impossible to grab everything
in time.
Mike Turpen, 38, said he was at a bar in the Glen Ellen area of Sonoma
County when someone stormed in wearing a smoke mask and yelled, "Fire!"
He said he drove through flames in his pickup truck with hopes of saving
his home.
"It was like Armageddon was on," Turpen told KGO. "Every branch of every tree was on fire."
He said that his yard was scorched and still flaming in some spots but that he managed to keep his home from burning down.
The causes of the fires are unknown.
As firefighters continue to try snuffing the flames that have devastated
thousands of acres, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office is attending to
up to "200 missing person reports" and using resources to "reunite
people with their missing loved ones," it wrote in a Facebook post.
Crum conceded that it could take a long time for communities to bounce back.
"We have a lot of rebuilding here," Crum said.
ABC News' M.L. Nestel, Rex Sakamoto and Marilyn Heck contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment