A second fatality was confirmed on Wednesday in the massive California wildfires that have also destroyed more than 800 homes and forced the evacuation of 20,000 people, but crews appeared to turn a corner against the blazes as rain fell over the region.
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The officials are considering asking for emergency federal assistance from President Barack Obama and Governor Jerry Brown who are expected to discuss the matter on Wednesday. An estimated 585 homes and hundreds of other structures have burned.
Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin said Wednesday that cadaver dogs and their handlers are scouring Lake County in a search for missing persons thought to have perished in a fast-moving blaze that has destroyed more than 600 homes 90 miles north of San Francisco.
“It came in very fast, it was a monster”, she said from her home in Lodi.
Lynnette Round, a spokeswoman with CalFire, said some people were being allowed back into their homes to retrieve medication, check on their belongings or their livestock but an evacuation order was still in force.
More than 10,000 firefighters have been dispatched to work on the wildfires burning in California, according to Wednesday’s statewide fire summary. “But with all the fire and everything going on around you, just the chaos, I didn’t have time to think about it”.
The White House said Obama “expressed his gratitude for the fearless firefighters, local authorities, and emergency managers who have worked tirelessly to combat these devastating fires and evacuate people out of harm’s way”.
A former police reporter whose home was destroyed by a raging wildfire was reported missing by his family, and authorities said Wednesday his burned-out vehicle was found on the route he would have used to escape.
His sister-in-law, Shirley Burns, said Thursday the 65-year-old man was living in a trailer at the family’s metal recycling yard in Northern California and was likely sleeping and didn’t realize the fire in Lake County was marching quickly toward him Saturday.
The deadly fire took the life of Barbara McWilliams, 72, Monday who was tragically trapped inside her home as the Valley Fire swept through her neighborhood.
Firefighters help Maria Sanchez (C) and her husband Felino (2-L) inspecting their destroyed home after it was damaged over the weekend by the “Valley fire” in Middletown, California, USA, 15 September 2015.
McWilliams was a retired teacher who had advanced multiple sclerosis and settled in the Middletown area in the previous year .
Authorities say a body has been found in a wildfire burning in Northern California’s Sierra Nevada foothills.
But the San Francisco Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/1OYdYu6) officials with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spent Tuesday surveying a burned-out shed next to a two-story home.
Her body was found Sunday in her burned-out home after flames kept Lake County sheriff’s officials from reaching her.
The house was unscathed, but the fire had charred a hill south of the home after possibly igniting in or near the small shed, the newspaper reports.
The Lake County fire and another blaze about 120 miles to the southeast have displaced 23,000 people and were the worst of a dozen wildfires burning in the state.
This is the third major wildfire to hit the Lake Country area this summer alone. But it consumed another 180-plus homes in the process, and another 9,000 structures remain under threat, Cal Fire said.
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One of the blazes, the Rough Fire in Fresno County, has moved away from the Sierra Nevada’s Giant Sequoia trees, some of which are 3,000 years old. The Butte Fire was 45 percent contained by Tuesday night, but still threatened about 6,400 buildings.
