CALFORNIA WILDFIRES,10 DEAD,THOUSANDS FLEE AS WILD FIRES RIP THROUGH ORANGE COUNTY
Video: Wildfires rip through northern California (Photo: AP)
(ABC News)
Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for northern California's wine-making Napa, Sonoma, and Yuba counties as the blazes raged unchecked and engulfed the region in thick, billowing smoke that drifted into San Francisco and Oakland.
A state of emergency was also declared in Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Nevada and Orange counties.
At least seven people died in the winemaking region of Sonoma, while two died in neighbouring Napa and another was killed in a blaze further north.
At least 100 others were injured, with the majority of those treated for smoke inhalation.
Taken as a group, the fires are already among the 10 deadliest in California history, and the death toll is expected to grow.
Thousands of firefighters battled wind gusts in excess of 80 kilometres per hour as 14 wildfires — several out of control — in eight northern California counties burned through more than 23,000 hectares since the weekend, CalFire spokesman Daniel Berlant said.
About 1,500 homes and commercial buildings have been destroyed, Ken Pimlott, director of CalFire, told a news conference.
The blazes included the so-called Tubbs fire in Napa County, about 113 kilometres north of San Francisco in an area world-famous for its vineyards.
It had scorched about 10,117 hectares of land as of this morning, according to CalFire.
October has generally been the most destructive time of year for California wildfires, but it is unusual to have so many fires take off at the same time.
'Scared the hell out of me'
John Van Dyke, standing in his pyjamas near the 101 Freeway in Santa Rosa, watched a hillside in flames from the Tubbs fire.
Police pounded on his door in the mobile home park, telling him to evacuate.
"When I got in the car to leave, a whole section of the mobile park was in flames," he said.
"It scared the hell out of me."
The flames were unforgiving throughout Santa Rosa, torching block after block with little to salvage.
Hundreds of homes in the Fountain Grove area were levelled by flames so hot they melted the glass off of cars and turned aluminium wheels into liquid.
One neighbourhood of older homes was scorched, leaving only brick chimneys and downed power lines.
Two hospitals in the county were forced to evacuate, while authorities imposed a sunset-to-sunrise curfew in the region, saying they were on the lookout for looters.
San Francisco authorities issued an air quality alert due to smoke from the fires, which residents said they could smell from the early morning hours.
Wesley Carr, 23, a resident of Sebastopol in Sonoma County, said smoke from the fires had enveloped the area.
"The sun is a pale yellow, that's how thick the smoke is," he said, adding that ash was floating in the air from one of the fires, which he estimated is about 50 kilometres away.
On Tuesday, another wildfire also torched a handful of homes in Southern California in the affluent Anaheim Hills neighbourhood in Orange County.
The blaze erupted along the 91 Freeway next to an off-ramp and spread quickly in gusty winds to char more than 202 hectares, Orange County Fire Authority spokesman Captain Larry Kurtz said.
Authorities in the cities of Anaheim, which includes Anaheim Hills, and Orange ordered hundreds of residents to evacuate.
Photo:
A DC-10 aircraft drops fire retardant on a wind-driven wildfire in Orange County. (Reuters: Mike Blake)
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