The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved California’s request for a Fire Management Assistance Grant for the Clayton Fire Monday. Staff at a hospital in Clearlake, a neighboring town of about 15,000, rushed to transfer 16 patients to another hospital while firefighters carried goats and other animals to safety as homes burned around them.
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Vet and animal rescue groups have set up an evacuation center for animals hurt or left homeless in the blaze rampaging through California’s wildfire tired Lake County.
It had scorched more than 2,185 hectares within less than 48 hours after erupting on Saturday afternoon, destroying a dozen structures and threatening about 200 more, with hundreds of residents being told to flee.
The blaze comes just as the county had started to rebuild from last year’s calamitous fire season.
A thousand homes are threatened by the fire, Cal Fire said, while 100 structures are damaged and 10 destroyed.
No one was injured as the fire tore through Lower Lake, a town of about 1,300 people 100 miles north of San Francisco. Flames reached downtown Lower Lake Sunday, destroying several businesses and at least 10 homes. It holds sentimental value to them too because the 3-bedroom place was big enough to allow them to past year adopt their three daughters.
“You have the dryness of the fuels”, Cal Fire spokesman Scott McLean said, according to KGO.”You have the weather concerning us right now as the winds – and you have the topography that makes it very hard”.
The family is now staying with friends.
One of the first things Mary Henderson grabbed was a tote bag filled with her late son’s childhood books, blanket and other keepsakes.
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Daniel Berlant didn’t have the breakdown of the number of homes, businesses and other buildings destroyed by the fire, which broke out Saturday and spans almost 5 square miles. More than 1,000 firefighters are now working to stop Clayton, he said.
No injuries have been reported and the cause of the fire that broke out Saturday was unknown.
“There are homes that have burned down, and I’m sure that mine will be one of them”, says Lower Lake resident Susan Smith, who spoke with The California Report.
The fire in Lower Lake reduced businesses to little more than charred foundations that were still smoldering on Monday.
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“This fire roared through the city like a wave of water – it was a wave of fire that came through here”, said Lt. Doug Pittman, a Marin County sheriff’s spokesman working on behalf of the forestry department.
