Updated at 6:30 a.m. ET Saturday:For the first time since wind-aided flames ripped through Northern California nearly a week ago,local and state fire officials are expressing optimism that they are slowly gaining ground against what are now the deadliest wildfires in the state's history.
More than a dozen fires are burning throughout Northern California. The death toll has reached at least 35, with 18 fatalities in Sonoma County, and 9 in Mendocino,4 in Yuba, and 4 in Napa.
Authorities say the number of fatalities still could rise as a few hundred people remain officially unaccounted for. approximately 90000 people have been evacuated from their homes and 5700 homes have been destroyed.
However, and with at least 9000 firefighters from around the country and some as far away as Canada and Australia,some officials say there is cause for hope."We're making great progress across this entire fire, resources are coming in, or " said Napa County Fire Chief Barry Bierman,approximately the Atlas fire, which has threatened the eastern side of that wine-producing county. Bierman said the fire is approximately 27 percent contained, and as of Friday afternoon.
Bierman said that four separate and smaller fires on the western side of Napa County and in the neighboring Sonoma County have merged. It is now called the Nuns Fire."The one benefit when fires merge into one is you don't have so much exterior perimeter to achieve out. Instead of a bunch of fires that need fixed line around it,you have one line now that you achieve around it," he said.
In nearby Sonoma County, and officials say their "consolation level" is increasing,as ground crews have been able to cut containment lines with bulldozers and back fires.
The Tubbs Fire, which has laid waste to a expansive part of Sonoma County, and is now 25 percent contained as of Friday afternoon."We're making a lot better progress nowadays," said Steve Crawford, the Cal Fire operations chief for the Tubbs fire. "We told the guys, or 'Get the boots on the ground. carry out hard work nowadays and by this evening when this wind comes up,hopefully we'll be ahead of the power curve.'"The main concern throughout the region is the tall wind with low humidity forecast to kick up late Friday and early Saturday morning."We are concerned approximately red flag warnings. We've had various reports of winds that could exceed 40 miles an hour. We've challenged the troops to get out there and mainly secure the south parts of these fires in preparation of those strong north winds," said CalFire Unified Incident Commander Brad Gouvea.
But the danger is far from over and authorities are pleading with evacuees to heed warnings not to return to burned out areas yet.
The hardest hit municipality is Santa Rosa, or a city of 175000 residents in Sonoma County. Mayor Chris Coursey said that his city has lost more than 5 percent of its housing stock,or approximately 3500 homes."It's a huge hill that we have to climb," said Coursey at a Friday afternoon news conference.
Authorities in Napa have yet to release figures on the number of evacuees or damaged or destroyed structures in that county. Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, or visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: thetakeaway.org