Authorities have identified two men, including a former San Jose journalist, whose bodies were found this week in the devastating Valley Fire area that has scorched more than 70,000 acres.
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Calaveras County coroner Kevin Raggio says two bodies were found Tuesday inside their homes, which were destroyed by a fire burning southeast of Sacramento.
Mark McCloud, 66, was found dead beneath the rubble of his home a few miles east of the town of San Andreas in Northern California.
Raggio did not release the name of the second victim, also found in Mountain Ranch, because the family has not been notified.
Authorities on Sunday found the body of 72-year-old Barbara McWilliams in her burned-out home near Middletown.
The charred remains of a car belonging to Leonard Neft, who has been missing since a wildfire tore through the area and destroyed his home days earlier, sits in the Anderson Springs area Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015, near Middl…
His daughter Joselyn Neft previously said Adela Neft repeatedly called her husband Saturday to tell him to leave the house, but he told her he didn’t think the fire was coming toward him. He drove to his mother-in-law’s place in Middletown, only to have to flee again when the flames began closing in on her house and her neighbor’s home.
Smoking power lines dangled overhead.
The officials were considering asking President Barack Obama for emergency federal assistance.
“We are getting extreme fire behavior without winds”, said Scott Jones, a state fire behavior analyst, “The fires are traveling at speeds in excess of the models”. “There’s going to be a lot of heartbreak for the folks who live out here”.
State fire chief Kim Zagaris says the official tally of homes destroyed in the Lake County fire stands at 603, but that figure is expected to increase. Two more people remain missing.
That blaze has consumed more than 109 square miles.
Rain fell steadily on Wednesday at an evacuation center where hundreds of people were staying in trucks and tents. The centre at the Napa County fairgrounds was feeding about 1,000 people at each meal.
Nearby, in front of the center where volunteers prepared food donated by local restaurants, businesses and community members, some evacuees jammed on guitars and drums. Many have posted on Facebook about relatives missing from the Butte Fire. Martha Grimm broke down in tears.
“It’s not there anymore, and he’s not there, and we don’t know where he’s at”, she said. “Hopefully we get a little bit more rain”.
Don Grimm said he was surprised to find chickens, horses and llamas on the ranch had survived the fire.
The county, about 100 miles north of San Francisco, has been hit hard by wildfires that have ravaged the state this summer, aided by a four-year drought and crispy, dry trees and brush.
The wildfire burning in the Sierra Nevada had destroyed at least 252 homes and charred more than 110 square miles.
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According to Cal Fire, the Northern California blaze grew from 67,500 acres overnight and is now 35 percent contained – up from 15 percent containment on Tuesday night.
