California wildfires: Death toll climbs to 21, Sonoma County sheriff cites 560 missing
There has been minimal containment of the fast-growing wildfires in
The death toll rose Tuesday to 17 in
Unable to search home-by-home through rubble and debris, authorities are using police detective work to locate the missing. A 30-person team is tracking down relatives, friends and searching through data to determine the last known whereabouts of each person unaccounted for, the sheriff said.
"The devastation is enormous," Giordano said. "We can't even get into most areas. The 11 we found have been found for other reasons. We're not doing searches to find them. We're getting called there for for x, y or z and finding them."
"So when we start doing searches, I would expect that number to go up," he said.
Heavy winds are expected to return Wednesday afternoon and create a "very high fire danger."
As of Wednesday morning, mandatory evacuation orders remained in effect in areas of
Early Wednesday, the
As the fire climbed toward
"Those 35 people sat there and watched the fire burn around them," Giordano said.
The sheriff said he expects no one will be allowed to return to evacuated areas of unincorporated
Tens of thousands of people remained out of their homes and more were evacuated Tuesday afternoon in northern
Wednesday morning, ABC7 reported that seven
The fires have burned more than 120,000 acres north of the Golden Gate.
As of late Tuesday, fire crews had little to no containment on the six major fires burning in
Calmer winds and higher humidity aided fire-suppression efforts Tuesday, but the winds are expected to turn gusty and swing 180 degrees on Wednesday, blowing from the northwest and challenging the containment lines that have been secured along the long southern flanks of the fires, said
"It will let firefighters know whether their lines were good enough along parts of the fire or not," Lareau said. "Hopefully, the answer is yes."
The Wine Country wildfires have created the dirtiest air ever seen in the
"This is similar to what you see in
The smoke may linger for days, underscoring the need for people to stay indoors as much as possible and avoid strenuous exercise in smoky areas, air regulators cautioned.
In
"One woman learned that her home was still standing, but her farm was gone," said de Grassi, a spokeswoman for the
The fires also destroyed a popular Jewish camp in
At a news conference Tuesday morning, officials with the
President
Most of the fatalities reported so far have been from
The fires also claimed the lives of two people in
The conditions are not expected to get better for firefighters as forecasters from the
"It's not going to be anywhere what we saw," said
"These embers can twist and turn and wind up in other areas that might not be in the direction of the winds," Garcia said.
Tuesday, the weather service issued a red flag warning for the
Among those who lost their homes are Raiders legend
"I don't know, man, the wrath of God is not very happy," Branch said. "We've had hurricanes three weeks in a row, an earthquake in
In neighborhood after neighborhood, Wine Country residents returned home Tuesday to find utter devastation. Bleary-eyed and clutching a styrofoam cup,
There's nothing left of his two homes in the area. Also gone, he said, are his 2016 Corvette, van, Harley motorcycle and other "toys."
For Perez and his neighbor,
With limited cell service and power down in many places, residents whose homes were spared are finding it hard to return, especially since most homes in the hills use wells. Without power, they have no water. That was the case with
"It was just plain lucky,"
They spent the night in their camper, which they set up on a church's property.
Another
"I want to go up and see what's there," he said, "and I don't want to go, you know?"
Staff writers
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