[WATCH] California wildfires: at least 10 killed in ‘unprecedented’ blaze

Ten people have died in northern California after what officials are describing as an 'unprecedented' wild fire, which has already destroyed 1,500 structures and devastated large areas of wine country

Fire-fighter coves his eyes as he walks past a burning hillside in Santa Rosa, California on 9 October (Photo: CNN)
Fire-fighter coves his eyes as he walks past a burning hillside in Santa Rosa, California on 9 October (Photo: CNN)

 

“We often have multiple fires going on, but the majority of them all started right around same time period, same time of night – it’s unprecedented,” said Amy Head, fire captain spokesperson for Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fire protection.

California’s governor, Jerry Brown, has declared a state of emergency in eight mostly northern counties – Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Sonoma and Yuba counties.

According to officials, nine of the deaths occurred in Napa and Sonoma counties, while another was farther north, in Mendocino county.

The wildfires, whipped by powerful winds early on Monday, sent residents on a headlong flight to safety through smoke and flames as homes burned. Around 20,000 people have been evacuated, including hundreds of senior citizens from local nursing homes.

Officials say the high winds are hampering fire-fighting efforts in the region about 225km north of San Francisco. To assist with the efforts the country’s largest fire-fighting aircraft – a converted 747 – was deployed.

Mandatory evacuations were ordered in counties north of San Francisco Bay and elsewhere after blazes broke out late on Sunday.

Another Cal Fire spokesperson, Heather Williams, said that 17 major fires had started in the past 24 hours in the California, burning about 94,000 acres, mostly in the northern part of the state. Of those fires, only two are even partly contained, she said; one at just 10% and another at 25%.

She added that unusually high winds had made the fires spread so quickly. “Night-time is when humidity is the highest and temperatures are cooler, but that wind, fuelled by denser vegetation, really pushed these fires so quickly.”

The high number of fatalities in one series of connected fires is unusual. There have been, on average, 13 wildfire fatalities a year in the whole of the United States since 2014, according to figures collated by the National Interagency Fire Centre.

Head, the Cal Fire captain, said the fires were probably linked to a warming climate. “It has been hotter, it has been drier, our fire seasons have been longer, fires are burning more intensely, which is a direct correlation to the climate changing,” she said.

Belia Ramos, chairwoman of the Napa County board of supervisors, said officials did not yet have a count on how many properties were affected, either by the fire directly or by evacuations.

“We’re focusing on making evacuations and trying to keep people safe. We are not prepared to start counting. Certainly with day just breaking now, we are starting to see the structures that are affected,” she said shortly after sunrise.

“The gusts are tremendous and it’s what makes this fire unpredictable. It’s something that we’re having to be very cautious about,” she said.