California wildfires: death toll rises to 23 as winds get stronger

'We’re still not out of the woods' says spokeswoman for Cal Fire

(Photo: the Los Angeles Times)
(Photo: the Los Angeles Times)

The death toll has risen to 23, as wildfires continue to rage almost completely out of control in California’s wine country, with fire-fighters expecting weather conditions to take a turn for the worst.

“Now the winds are going back up and the humidity is going back down,” said Heather Williams, a spokeswoman for Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fire protection. “We’re still not out of the woods. It’s a very serious situation.”

In the tiny wine country town of Glen Ellen, where the ground was still smoking from the flames that tore through early Monday morning, Loren Davis, of the Mountain volunteer fire department said that in 20 years of firefighting, he had never seen anything like the Tubbs fire, one of the now 23 major wildfires.

Residents of the Eastridge development in the Bay Area city of Fairfield were busy loading their cars on Wednesday afternoon as flurries of ash fell over the neighborhood like a dry, putrid dusting of snow. Firefighters and police officers were stationed every few blocks in the sprawling development of rolling hills, large houses and meticulously landscaped gardens, waiting for the order to declare a mandatory evacuation.

“I’m nervous,” said Annette Abrao, gesturing toward her cigarette as she stood in her driveway. Abrao, a dental hygienist, and her husband, Eddie, a landscaper, had left work early to get home and prepare to leave. Their truck held photographs and documents, while a trailer was packed with camping gear, a golf cart, and a taxidermied elk head – a memento from a 2010 hunting trip.

“We have a house full of stuff, and the things that were really important fit in a truck and trailer,” Eddie Arbao said. “What does that tell you?”

The fireline was about three miles north as of late Wednesday afternoon, said the Fairfield fire department deputy chief, Matt Luckenbach, who was on standby for the evacuation orders and has been on duty since the early hours of Monday.

Though the fire wasn’t advancing quickly yet, Luckenbach warned: “Three miles, as far as fire goes, isn’t far at all.”

On Bridle Ridge Road – one of the most vulnerable sites in Eastridge – four Fairfield firefighters joked, drank coffee and monitored the wind as they waited for the fire to approach, or not.

“It’s like the calm before the storm,” said Elliott Blanton, a probationary firefighter in his first year on the force. “Kind of exciting, but sobering too.”

An aerial view of homes burned by wildfire in the Coffey Park neighborhood of Santa Rosa, California on 10 October (Photo: CNN)
An aerial view of homes burned by wildfire in the Coffey Park neighborhood of Santa Rosa, California on 10 October (Photo: CNN)

Captain Mike Guerra, a 26-year veteran, said that the neighborhood was relatively protected because it was well landscaped, with few areas of tall brush.

While the state agency Cal Fire confronts the wildfire itself, the local force is positioned to protect people, homes and other structures should the fire encroach on developed areas.

“We’re not bulletproof, but we’re pretty well prepared,” Guerra said. “Waiting is the hardest part.”

Still, he added, “It’d be preferable to do all this preparation and have nothing happen.”

Many in Eastridge expressed a sense of gratitude that they had time to prepare, unlike the residents of Santa Rosa, 50 miles north of San Francisco, where entire neighborhoods were razed to the ground early Monday morning, leaving little more than charred heaps of belongings, skeletal trees and melted cars.

Bob Lando, 71, grasped a folder of important documents as he finished up packing on Wednesday afternoon. The retired lawyer said he was “holding out hope” that the winds would die down, but added: “It’s nice to be prepared.” Lando’s son had not been so fortunate: his entire stock of 2016 vintage was “vaporized” when the fire burned his winery, Lando Wines, near Santa Rosa earlier in the week.

More than 20,000 people have headed to evacuation centers across the region, with more leaving their homes as new areas are threatened.

Thirteen of the fatalities occurred in Napa and Sonoma counties, about an hour north of San Francisco, and the others in the state’s northern and eastern reaches – six in Mendocino County and two in Yuba County.

The Sonoma County sheriff, Robert Giordano, said the number of missing-persons reports had surpassed 600, up from about 200 a day earlier. But officials believe many of those people will be found, saying that the chaotic evacuations and poor communications over the past few days have made locating friends and family difficult.

He also expects the death toll to climb.

“The devastation is enormous,” he said. “We can’t even get into most areas.”

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