(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli). Animal rescue group volunteer Nicole Walters carries a goat to a trailer from a home threatened by a fire near Railroad Flat, Calif., Sunday, September 13, 2015. “As Californians, we stand ready to lend a hand to our friends and neighbors”.
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With the Butte and Valley fires destroying more than 500 homes so far, CA Gov. Jerry Brown said the magnitude can’t be underestimated. The foundation purchases gift cards to give to fire crews, who in turn can distribute them to people who have lost their homes or have been displaced. Resources are coming in from all over the state, according to Fire Inspector Randall Wright of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
The fire department is pushing its limits as it attempts to contain a number of concurrent wildfires across the state. Hundreds of homes have burned. The shed is across the road from where the first call came in to report the fire.
Two evacuation centres in Napa County Fairgrounds and at a high school in Kelseyville were filling up fast with evacuees and donations.
Temperatures dropped Monday, allowing firefighters to more effectively combat the fast-moving fire as clouds and slight rainfall stymied the range of the now 62,000-acre Valley Fire.
“My little sister started crying in the auto so I had to shove her head down so she couldn’t see it”, Dominic said.
She said desperate residents had flooded the store over the weekend, buying everything from water, groceries, tools and other supplies.
Brown had already declared a state of emergency for a separate 102-square-mile (264-sq. kilometer) wildfire southeast of Sacramento that has destroyed at least 81 homes and turned the grassy, tree-studded Sierra Nevada foothills an eerie white.
Cal Fire officials confirmed late Tuesday investigators are looking into a shed fire in the town of Cobb as one possible source for the massive Valley Fire. She told her caretaker she didn’t want to leave her home near Middletown.
Some residents cried as they walked through the rubble of their homes while others shared awesome stories of survival as more people returned to their houses Tuesday and surveyed the twisted metal and smoking ruins left behind by a devastating California wildfire.
The so-called Valley Fire in Lake County erupted on Saturday afternoon and spread quickly to a cluster of small communities in the region, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents.
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While the fire grew about 5,000 acres during the night it is moving at a slower rate, thanks in part to the weather. Coen said those conditions could have been forecast given the weather pattern that was developing, which she said was common for that area.
