Desperately fleeing the burning hills in Northern California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — As the flames closed in on tiny Berry Creek in the Sierra Nevada foothills early Wednesday, Misty Spires and her boyfriend hooked a fire hose to a hydrant in a desperate attempt to defend their homes and the town’s only laundromat.

They gave up around 4 a.m. when propane tanks began exploding and they were dodging embers “as big as my feet,” she said. But traffic was snarled on the two-lane bridge leading out of town, forcing Spires and others to turn around and drive down a sandbar to escape the flames.

She helped another man load his motorcycle on the back of her pickup truck before sprinting to safety.

“It was like a war zone, like standing in the breath of hell,” she said.

For the second time in two years, fire has destroyed a mountain community in Butte County. Two years ago it was Paradise, where roughly 19,000 buildings were destroyed and 85 people died in the most destructive wildfire in state history.

This time, it was Berry Creek — an unincorporated town of about 1,200 people in the same remote, rolling heavily forested mountains that locals described as a peaceful, close-knit community.

Dozens of wildfires have been burning for weeks across California and the U.S. West, most sparked by lightning strikes. But the North Complex Fire in Northern California surprised fire officials by how quickly it spread after smoldering for weeks in a mostly unpopulated region.

Aided by strong winds, steep terrain and miles of dried out foliage, the fire — more than 8 miles (13 kilometers) wide — quickly roared into Butte County on Tuesday.

This time, Paradise was spared. Smaller mountain communities such as Berry Creek and Feather Falls were quickly overwhelmed. Firefighters scrambled to rescue more than 100 people on Tuesday and early Wednesday.

But they couldn’t save everyone.

By Saturday, authorities said the fire claimed 12 lives and another 13 remained missing.

Millicent Catarancuic’s 5-acre property in Berry Creek was a rescue shelter of sorts. She had at least four dogs and several cats, many of whom wandered into her yard and never left after finding a loving home.

Her scattered family had seen much tragedy, but in recent years they had mostly settled at her compound in the hills, where it took a 30-minute drive to get anywhere. With her sister, Suzan Violet Zurz, and Phil Rubel, an uncle by marriage, the three lived in quietly, caring for animals and playing the card game FreeCell on a desktop computer.

They were not foolhardy with fires, having voluntarily evacuated for others. Tuesday, they had packed the car and were getting ready to leave when, about 7 p.m., they changed their minds. They were safe, they assured their families.

Authorities would later find Catarancuic’s body near a car, along with those of two others. Zurz and Rubel are still listed as missing. But Zurz’s son, Zygy Roe-Zurz, fears the worst.

“It’s absolutely devastating to find out the people you love are suddenly and horribly gone,” he said. “We lived all over the world and finally settled in a place. So much work and so much thought went into being there and it’s, just, all gone.”

Spires and her boyfriend, Jonathan Gonzales, were headed to the muddy sandbar north of Lake Oroville, the largest body of water in the area. Gonzalez knew the area was clear of trees and close to the water and told the drivers caught in the jam getting out of Berry Creek to follow him.

“He told the others, ‘If you want to live instead of sitting on this bridge follow me,’” she said. “He saved a lot of lives.”

Once there, Spires said most people stayed huddled in their cars. But others got out and consoled each other.

“There wasn’t much that you can say in that situation but to say, ‘I’m glad you’re alive,’” Spires said.

While waiting for daylight, she saw horses and other animals run toward the lake as flames licked the hillsides.

Spires moved from Kansas City to Berry Creek two years ago, drawn to its verdant landscape, creeks and waterfalls that feed into the lake and the mild climate for her mother, who suffers from debilitating arthritis. Her loved ones all survived the blaze, but she mourned the loss of a town she had come to love.

She also mourned the loss of the Sugar Pine Saloon, a 1940s era bar where people in the community had signed their names in the rafters. Spires and her boyfriend were working hard to remodel and reopen it.

“It was a place where the whole community was involved in some way,” she said. “The whole history is just gone.”

___

Nguyen reported from San Francisco.

Associated Press

Big California wildfires burn on as death toll reaches 7

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters battling three massive wildfires in Northern California got a break from the weather early Monday as humidity rose and there was no return of the onslaught of lightning strikes that ignited the infernos a week earlier.

The region surrounding San Francisco Bay remained under extreme fire danger until late afternoon amid the possibility of of lightning and gusty winds, but fire commanders said the weather had aided their efforts so far.

“Mother Nature’s helped us quite a bit,” said Billy See, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection incident commander for a complex of fires burning south of San Francisco.

The three big fires around the Bay Area and many others burning across the state have put nearly 250,000 people under evacuation orders and warnings and authorities renewed warnings for anxious homeowners to stay away from the evacuation zones.

Six people who returned to a restricted area south of San Francisco to check on their properties were surprised by fire and had to be rescued, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office said.

The death toll from the fires reached 7 over the weekend after authorities battling a big fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco announced the discovery of the body of a 70-year-old man in a remote area called Last Chance.

He had been reported missing and police had to use a helicopter to reach the area of about 40 off-the-grid homes at the end of a windy, steep dirt road north of the city of Santa Cruz.

The area was under an evacuation order and Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Chris Clark said the discovery of the man’s body was a reminder of how important it was for residents to evacuate from fire danger zones.

“This is one of the darkest periods we’ve been in with this fire,” he said.

California over the last week has been hit by 650 wildfires across the state, many sparked by more than 12,000 lighting strikes recorded since Aug. 15. There are 14,000 firefighters, 2,400 engines and 95 aircraft battling the fires.

The Santa Cruz fire is one of three “complexes,” or groups of fires, burning on all sides of the San Francisco Bay Area. All were started by lightning.

Fire crew made slow progress battling the blazes over the weekend, which included a break in the unseasonably warm weather and little wind.

But the National Weather Service issued a “red flag” warning through Monday afternoon for the drought-stricken area, meaning extremely dangerous fire conditions exist, including high temperatures, low humidity, lightning and wind gusts up to 65 mph (105 kph) that officials said “may result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behavior.”

A fire in wine country north of San Francisco and another southeast of the city have within a week have grown to be two of the three largest fires in state history, with both burning more than 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers).

The wine country fire has been the most deadly and destructive blaze, accounting for five deaths and 845 destroyed homes and other buildings. Three of the victims were in a home that was under an evacuation order.

Officials surveying maps at command centers are astonished by the sheer size of the fires, said Cal Fire spokesman Brice Bennett.

“You could overlay half of one of these fires and it covers the entire city of San Francisco,” Bennett said Sunday.

In Southern California, an 11-day-old blaze held steady at just under 50 square miles (106 square kilometers) near Lake Hughes in the northern Los Angeles County mountains. Rough terrain, hot weather and the potential for thunderstorms with lightning strikes challenged firefighters on Sunday.

Authorities said their firefighting effort in Santa Cruz was hindered by people who refused to evacuate and those who were using the chaos to loot. Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart said 100 officers were patrolling and anyone not authorized to be in an evacuation zone would be arrested.

“What we’re hearing from the community is that there’s a lot of looting going on,” Hart said.

He and county District Attorney Jeff Rosell expressed anger at what Rosell called the “absolutely soulless” criminals victimizing people already victimized by the fire. Among them was a fire commander who was robbed when he left his fire vehicle to help direct operations.

Someone entered the vehicle and stole personal items, including a wallet and “drained his bank account,” said Chief Mark Brunton, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“I can’t imagine a bigger lowlife,” Hart said.

Holly Hansen, who fled the wine country fire, was among evacuees from the community of Angwin allowed Sunday to return home for one hour to retrieve belongings. She and her three dogs waited five hours in her SUV for their turn. Among the items she took with her were photos of her pets.

“It’s horrible when you have to think about what to take,” she said. “I think it’s a very raw human base emotion to have fear of fire and losing everything. It’s frightening.”

Associated Press

Robin Williams found dead in apparent suicide: sheriff

LOS ANGELES | Actor-comedian Robin Williams was found dead on Monday at his home in Northern California from an apparent suicide, Marin County Sheriff’s Office said. He was 63.

The sheriff’s coroner’s division said it suspects the death was a suicide due to asphyxia, but the cause of death is still under investigation.

source: interaksyon.com