About 3,000 firefighters continued to fight the blaze Saturday, down from 3,600 during the peak of the fire that erupted July 29.
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A look inside the still-raging wildfire that has ravaged almost 50 homes and displaced thousands in California.
“The firefighters have gained the upper hand on the fire”, Cal Fire spokesman Mike Yeun said. “It’s unpredictable. It built its own weather”, said Cal Fire Capt. Steve Kaufman.
The number of large uncontained active fires across California is down to 15, with firelines completed Thursday around the Frog Fire (4,745 acres in southwestern Modoc County) and the Wragg Fire (8,051 acres east of Lake Berryessa). “We have several more months of fire season ahead until we get a bit of rain”.
“All of it is gone, it’s so surreal”, said one of the evacuees, Layna Rivas, after she found her home in Clearlake Oaks had burned to the ground.
With wildfires burning across the state – exacerbated by severe drought conditions and extreme weather – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. declared a state of emergency in California to help mobilize additional firefighting and disaster response resources.
Battalion chief Rick Frawley says the Spring Valley area is expected to be reopened at 10 a.m. “Next time maybe we’ll have a nice box that’s ready to go that’s a little more appropriate”.
Margot Simpson, a manager at the Red Cross evacuation center set up at Middletown High School, said she hadn’t had any luck finding a room for a person in a wheelchair after searching four of the bigger nearby communities.
At his Morgan Valley Road property, O’Connor said he was running errands when the fire started.
“I feel pretty wonderful, it’s a huge relief”, Foster said Friday.
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Firefighters and equipment from Los Angeles and Orange County fire departments, including Santa Monica, were being deployed in northern California today in the battle to knock down 18 wildfires plaguing areas made tinder dry by the drought. “If it happened in New Hampshire, they would help us as well”.
