Tag Archives: California

Insured losses from deadly California wildfires could hit $3 billion

Insured losses from deadly California wildfires could hit $3 billion

By Keith Coffman

(Reuters) – Insured property losses from wildfires that raged through Northern California wine country this month, killing at least 42 people and destroying thousands of businesses and homes, could total $2 billion to $3 billion, a risk-modeling firm said on Thursday.

The analysis by Boston-based AOR Worldwide, encompassing anticipated claims for destroyed residences, automobiles, commercial properties and other economic losses, is at least double a preliminary tally estimated last week by the California Department of Insurance.

The AOR report said losses would be dominated by devastation in residential areas, especially in Sonoma County, where entire neighborhood blocks were reduced to ashes.

Since erupting on Oct. 8, the wind-driven wildfires have consumed some 245,000 acres across several California counties north of the San Francisco Bay area, leaving at least 8,700 structures destroyed.

Most of the property loss was concentrated in California’s celebrated wine country, including Sonoma County, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said this week.

Authorities have confirmed 42 fatalities in Sonoma and three other Northern California counties, among them a volunteer firefighter who was killed when his water-tender truck crashed. The death toll marked the greatest loss of life from a single wildfire event in the state’s history.

The $1 billion gap between the low- and high-end estimates was due to uncertainty surrounding how many claims will be filed for living expenses from residents forced to flee their homes, as well as for smoke damage and business disruptions caused by power outages, AOR Worldwide said.

Another unknown factor is the scope of damage that may have occurred during fire suppression efforts, it added.

A preliminary estimate from the California Department of Insurance a week ago put insured losses at just over $1 billion, although it said that figure would likely rise.

A spokeswoman with the department said on Thursday that the agency has not updated its figures.

The October wildfire outbreak was fueled by unseasonably high temperatures, tinder-dry conditions, and gusty winds. As of Thursday, most of the fires were near, or at, full containment, Cal Fire said.

Cooler weather forecast for the region in coming days should ease the wildfire risk, AOR said in its report, although Cal Fire urged the public exercise caution to avoid igniting further blazes as warm, dry weather lingers across parts of the state.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Steve Gorman and Michael Perry)

Schumer calls on Trump to appoint official to oversee Puerto Rico relief

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) departs after a full-Senate briefing by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the U.S. Capitol in Washington

By Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Charles Schumer, the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate, called on President Donald Trump on Sunday to name a single official to oversee and coordinate relief efforts in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.

Schumer, along with Representatives Nydia Velàzquez and Jose Serrano, said a “CEO of response and recovery” is needed to manage the complex and ongoing federal response in the territory, where millions of Americans remain without power and supplies.

In a statement, Schumer said the current federal response to Hurricane Maria’s impact on the island had been “disorganized, slow-footed and mismanaged.”

“This person will have the ability to bring all the federal agencies together, cut red tape on the public and private side, help turn the lights back on, get clean water flowing and help bring about recovery for millions of Americans who have gone too long in some of the worst conditions,” he said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Democrats contended that naming a lone individual to manage the government’s relief efforts was critical, particularly given that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is already stretched thin from dealing with other crises, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and the wildfires in California.

The severity of the Puerto Rico crisis, where a million people do not have clean water and millions are without power nearly a month after Hurricane Maria made landfall, demand a single person to focus exclusively on relief and recovery, the Democrats said.

Forty-nine people have died in Puerto Rico officially, with dozens more missing. The hurricane did extensive damage to the island’s power grid, destroying homes, roads and other vital infrastructure. Now, the bankrupt territory is struggling to provide basic services like running water, and pay its bills.

“It’s tragically clear this Administration was caught flat footed when Maria hit Puerto Rico,” said Velàzquez. “Appointing a CEO of Response and Recovery will, at last, put one person with authority in charge to manage the response and ensure we are finally getting the people of Puerto Rico the aid they need.”

On Thursday, Trump said the federal response has been a “10” on a scale of one to 10 at a meeting with Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello.

The governor has asked the White House and Congress for at least $4.6 billion in block grants and other types of funding.

Senator Marco Rubio called on Congress to modify an $18.7 billion aid package for areas damaged by a recent swath of hurricanes to ensure that Puerto Rico can quickly access the funds.

 

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Diane Craft)

 

California Dept of Insurance estimates wildfires losses at $1.05 billion

California Dept of Insurance estimates wildfires losses at $1.05 billion

By Suzanne Barlyn and Sangameswaran S

(Reuters) – The California Department of Insurance said on Thursday its preliminary estimate for insured wildfire losses was $1.05 billion, based on claims received by the state’s eight largest insurers, adding that it expected the numbers to rise.

Insurers have received 601 claims for commercial property losses, 4,177 claims for partial residential losses and 3,000 claims for auto losses, said California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones during a media call.

Since erupting on Oct. 8 and 9, the blazes in parts of Northern California have blackened more than 245,000 acres, (86,200 hectares) and destroyed an estimated 6,900 structures as of Thursday, including homes, wineries and other commercial buildings.

More than 15,000 people remain displaced, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said on Thursday.

A fire that started Monday in the Santa Cruz Mountains now threatens 300 homes, Jones said.

Residents of Northern California’s wine country left homeless by the state’s deadliest-ever wildfires could be temporarily housed in federal government trailers, officials said on Wednesday, as the death toll from the blazes rose to 42.

Moody’s Investor Service estimated insured losses at $4.6 billion on Monday, based on an earlier figure of 5,700 destroyed structures, according to a report.

Insurer Travelers Cos Inc <TRV.N>, which announced its third quarter results on Thursday, also warned investors of large claims likely this quarter from the wildfires.

The company paused a share repurchase plan in September to conserve cash as it reviewed claims from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which made landfall in September and October, and it is still evaluating that position in the light of wildfire claims, said Travelers Chief Executive Alan Schnitzer on a conference call with analysts.

State Farm is California’s largest homeowners insurer and sixth-largest commercial fire insurer, according to a Moody’s analysis.

The insurer, as of Thursday, received 3,220 homeowners insurance claims and 1,110 auto insurance claims, mostly from damage sustained in Napa and Sonoma Counties, a spokesman said.

Other large insurers in California include Farmers Insurance, CSAA Insurance Group, Travelers and Allstate Corp <ALL.N> and Chubb Ltd. <CB.N>.

(Reporting by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru and Suzanne Barlyn in New York; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and David Gregorio)

Trailers could house those displaced by fires in California wine country

Trailers could house those displaced by fires in California wine country

By Dan Whitcomb and Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Residents of Northern California’s wine country left homeless by the state’s deadliest-ever wildfires could be temporarily housed in federal government trailers, officials said on Wednesday, as the death toll from the blazes rose to 42.

Since erupting on Oct. 8 and 9, the blazes have blackened more than 245,000 acres, (86,200 hectares) and destroyed an estimated 4,600 homes along with wineries and commercial buildings.

Thousands of survivors, forced to flee the flames with little warning, remain displaced. Many are returning to find nothing left, forcing them to seek housing in emergency shelters or with family and friends.

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency has called trailers a solution of last resort for housing the displaced.

But local officials said they had few other options because of a lack of hotels and rental housing, especially around Santa Rosa – the urban hub of the region’s wine country – which had nearly 5 percent of its homes destroyed.

“We have talked to FEMA about trailers, we’re not sure what the availability is, how soon we could get them here, but we are looking at every option,” Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey told Reuters by phone.

“I don’t relish having people living in FEMA trailers, but it’s a hell of a lot better than sleeping out under the stars,” he said.

FEMA deployed trailers to house thousands of people displaced by 2005’s Hurricane Katrina along the U.S. Gulf Coast, triggering lawsuits by people who contended they were exposed to formaldehyde in the government-issued housing.

A judge in 2012 approved a settlement requiring builders of the trailers to pay a settlement of nearly $40 million.

FEMA’s latest trailers, which it calls manufactured or temporary housing units, have new safety features and are built to high standards, the agency said in a blog post last year.

The agency is only at the beginning stage of determining which options to employ, in consultation with local officials, to house people displaced by the fires, FEMA spokesman Victor Inge said by phone.

“A temporary housing unit is an absolute last resort, they’re expensive and they take a long time to get set up,” Inge said.

‘PROBABLY GOING TO NEED TRAILERS’

Officials with Sonoma County, which includes Santa Rosa, are considering sites with built-in utilities, such as running water and electricity, for mobile-home units, said Margaret Van Vliet, executive director of the Sonoma County Community Development Commission.

“We know we’re probably going to need FEMA trailers,” she said.

Firefighters on Wednesday were still battling the blazes, the deadliest in state history, as search-and-rescue teams picked through burned-out neighborhoods.

Law enforcement officials said the body of the 42nd confirmed victim was found late on Tuesday in the Fountain Grove section of Santa Rosa.

About 60 people remain missing or unaccounted for in Sonoma and Napa counties. Most of the more than 2,000 people listed in missing-persons reports have turned up safe, including evacuees who failed to alert authorities after fleeing their homes.

Fire officials said that while 13 major blazes were still burning as of Wednesday, the flames were largely contained and no longer considered a threat to homes or communities.

“We have stopped the forward progress and movement of all these fires, we have line around them,” Brett Gouvea, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection deputy chief, told reporters at an afternoon news conference. A Santa Rosa couple whose house was destroyed sued Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) on Tuesday, alleging the utility failed to take preventative measures in the face of dangerous drought conditions.

Representatives for PG&E said that the utility was focused on supporting firefighting efforts and restoring power

About 30 vintners sustained fire damage to wine-making facilities, vineyards, tasting rooms or other assets, according to the Napa Valley Vintners industry group

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Jim Christie in San Francisco and Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney)

California prepares for the ‘big one’ with earthquake drill

California prepares for the 'big one' with earthquake drill

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Millions of Californians were due on Thursday to simultaneously drop to the floor, clamber under tables and cover their heads for a minute or two of imagined seismic turmoil during the latest annual “Great ShakeOut” earthquake drill.

The event, first held nine years ago in the Los Angeles area, was organized by scientists and emergency officials as part of a campaign to prepare the region’s inhabitants for a catastrophic quake that experts say is inevitable and long overdue.

The exercise has since expanded to encompass all of California and most other states, as well as some other countries, including Canada and Japan. In many places, entire school districts, colleges, workplaces and municipalities have registered to take part.

In keeping with the drill’s quake-survival message, participants are urged to “drop, cover and hold” – meaning get down on hands and knees, cover their heads and necks under a sturdy piece of furniture and hang on until the hypothetical shaking stops.

To help participants get into the mood, organizers have even prepared audio recordings of quake-rumbling sounds that can be downloaded, with or without narration, and played during the drill.

Such rehearsals are especially important in regions such as Southern California, where “it’s not a matter of if but when that catastrophic earthquake will strike,” said Ken Kondo, spokesman for Los Angeles County’s emergency management office.

One of the larger gatherings planned is to be held at the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park near downtown Los Angeles.

Following the drill, the city fire department, American Red Cross, police and other agencies will stage a full-scale earthquake-response exercise, setting up a medical triage area, emergency shelters and mass-feeding operation, Kondo said.

That drill is based on the premise of a magnitude 7.8 quake striking the southern end of the San Andreas Fault, a subterranean chasm between two massive plates of the Earth’s crust that extends hundreds of miles across California.

The scenario was devised by geophysicists and engineers who envisioned a calamity that would leave 1,800 people dead, 50,000 injured and 250,000 homeless while severing highways, power lines, pipelines, railroads, communications networks and aqueducts, and toppling some 1,500 buildings.

As of late Wednesday, nearly 53 million participants were registered for ShakeOut drills worldwide, including more than 10.2 million in California, organizers said.

The exercise is set to begin at 10:19 a.m. local time, corresponding with the date of the event.

A rupture of the San Andreas Fault in northern California caused the massive quake that laid waste to San Francisco in 1906. The last “big one” to strike south of the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles was 300 years ago. The average interval between such quakes in that region is just 150 years, experts say.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Leslie Adler)

California wildfire evacuees allowed home as crews search for bodies

California wildfire evacuees allowed home as crews search for bodies

By Paresh Dave

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (Reuters) – More evacuees were expected to return home on Tuesday in Northern California where the state’s deadliest wildfires have killed at least 41 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

Officials said they expected the death toll to rise as 88 people were unaccounted for in Sonoma County alone and search-and-rescue teams combed through gutted homes looking for bodies.

Lighter winds have allowed the 11,000 firefighters battling the flames, which have consumed more than 213,000 acres (86,200 hectares), to gain control of two of the deadliest fires in wine country’s Napa and Sonoma counties.

The Tubbs fire was 75 percent contained and the Atlas fire 70 percent contained on Monday night, said Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency, which was hopeful the blazes would be fully contained by Friday.

Tens of thousands of people who fled the flames in Sonoma County and elsewhere have been allowed to return home, with about 40,000 still displaced.

Daniel Mufson, 74, a retired pharmaceutical executive and one of scores of Napa Valley residents who lost their homes in the fires, described his sense of bewilderment.

“Now we’re just trying to figure out what the next steps are. We’re staying with friends, and dealing with the issues of dealing with insurance companies and getting things cleaned up,” Mufson, president of a community-activist coalition called Napa Vision 2050, told Reuters.

The remains of a mobile home park where fatalities took place when it was destroyed in wildfire are seen in Santa Rosa.

The remains of a mobile home park where fatalities took place when it was destroyed in wildfire are seen in Santa Rosa.
REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

CONSUMED

At least 5,700 homes and businesses have been destroyed by the wildfires that erupted a week ago and consumed an area larger than that of New York City. Entire neighborhoods in the city of Santa Rosa were reduced to ashes.

The wildfires are California’s deadliest on record, surpassing the 29 deaths from the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.

Most of the 1,863 people so far listed in missing-persons reports have turned up safe, including many evacuees who failed to alert authorities after fleeing their homes.

Hopes for victims known to have been in the direct path of the flames will dwindle as each day passes, Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano said on Monday.

About 30 vintners sustained some level of fire damage to wine-making facilities, vineyards, tasting rooms or other assets, the Napa Valley Vintners association said. But only about a half dozen reported significant losses, spokeswoman Patsy McGaughy said.

Vineyards, which mainly occupy the valley floor, appear to have been largely unscathed as the fires in Napa County burned mainly in the hillsides, McGaughy said. About 90 percent of Napa’s grape harvest had been picked and escaped potential exposure to smoke that could have tainted the fruit.

Still, the toll taken on the region as a whole has thrown the wine industry into disarray, and McGaughy said the 2017 Napa vintage will likely be smaller than it otherwise would have been.

“This is a human tragedy, there are people who have lost their lives, lost their homes, lost their business,” McGaughy said, adding Napa’s celebrated viniculture would recover.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave in Santa Rosa, Calif; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Firefighters gaining edge in California wildfires that have killed at least 40

Search and Rescue teams search for two missing people amongst ruins at Journey's End Mobile Home Park destroyed by the Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa.

By Salvador Rodriguez

SANTA ROSA (Reuters) – Firefighters began gaining ground on wildfires that killed at least 40 people in the past week, the deadliest blazes in California’s history, as winds eased and searchers combed charred ruins for more victims with hundreds still missing.

Two of the three most destructive Northern California fires were more than half contained early on Monday, and some residents who fled the flames in hard-hit Sonoma County could be allowed to return home later in the day, officials said.

More than 5,700 structures were destroyed by more than a dozen wildfires that ignited a week ago and consumed an area larger than New York City. Entire neighborhoods in the city of Santa Rosa were reduced to ashes.

“Overall, things are feeling optimistic. We’re very cautious about that,” said Brad Gouvea, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection incident commander. “You’d never know it’s the middle of October in Sonoma County and have fire behavior like this.”

A firefighting helicopter drops water to defend a vineyard from an approaching wildfire in Santa Rosa.

A firefighting helicopter drops water to defend a vineyard from an approaching wildfire in Santa Rosa.
REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

Warm and very dry weather is forecast to continue through Monday, the National Weather Service said. Rain could arrive on Thursday after a cooling trend, it said.

Steve Crawford, a Cal Fire operations chief, said heavy winds had lightened and helped drive flames away from populated areas. Better weather and additional equipment and manpower made available as other fires died down had also helped.

“Before we were kind of chasing the fire,” he said.

In another hopeful sign, Mendocino County authorities said power company PG&E would begin flying low in the county to check lines and re-establish power.

About 11,000 firefighters supported by air tankers and helicopters are battling blazes that have consumed more than 217,000 acres (88,000 hectares).

About 50 search-and-rescue personnel backed by National Guard troops were combing tens of thousands of charred acres in Sonoma County for bodies, sheriff’s spokeswoman Misti Harris said.

“Once it’s safe to go through, we’ll search every structure,” she said.

Twenty-two people were killed in Sonoma County and 174 were still listed as missing there, although the number has dropped from 235 on Saturday as more people checked in with authorities.

Evacuation orders were lifted for the picturesque Napa Valley resort town of Calistoga, whose 5,000 residents were ordered out by authorities four days ago with fire just miles from downtown.

Thank you banners to responders are hung above Highway 101 after wildfires tore through portions of Santa Rosa, California, U.S., October 15, 2017.

Thank you banners to responders are hung above Highway 101 after wildfires tore through portions of Santa Rosa, California, U.S., October 15, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

RETURNING TO THE UNKNOWN

Some evacuees being housed at a Sonoma raceway hoped to return home.

Retiree Stephen Garner, 68, of Sonoma, has been camped with his wife in the couple’s recreational vehicle.

“As far as we know our house is OK, but that’s the hard part, you don’t know,” he said.

In Redwood Valley, a scorched Mendocino County town of about 1,700 people, Jami Flores and her family sifted through the ruins of their two-story rental home, which was reduced to rubble.

“There’s been a lot of crying and a lot of emotions,” Flores, 42, said.

Flores, her husband and daughter fled Monday morning after being awoken by the smell of smoke, not uncommon in the area. Seeing a red haze, they rushed to leave amid falling ash and arriving firefighters.

“The mountain was on fire,” Flores said. Now she wonders, “Where do we all go next?”

The fast-moving fires north of San Francisco remained a danger, with thousands ordered to leave their homes at the weekend.

Firefighters gained control of two of the deadliest fires in wine country’s Napa and Sonoma counties: The Tubbs fire was 60 percent contained and the Atlas fire 65 percent contained, Cal Fire said. Nearly half of the Redwood Valley fire, which alone is responsible for eight deaths in Mendocino County, was extinguished by late Sunday.

The 40 confirmed fatalities make the fires California’s deadliest since record-keeping began, surpassing the 29 deaths from the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.

About 75,000 people remain displaced.

At least a dozen Napa Valley and Sonoma County wineries were damaged or destroyed, throwing the state’s wine industry and related tourism into disarray.

Firefighters from Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and New York are helping battle the blazes. Cal Fire estimated the fires would be contained by Friday.

The year’s wildfire season is one of the worst in U.S. history, with nearly 8.6 million acres (3.4 million hectares) burned by Oct. 13, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The worst on record for the same period in a year was 9.3 million acres in 2015.

 

(Editing by Chris Michaud and Paul Tait)

 

Latino workers flee California wine country fires for shelters, beaches

Volunteers and evacuees who work in the region's tourism and wine industries, sift through clothing at a shelter in Petaluma, California, U.S., October 13, 2017. REUTERS/Noel Randewich

By Noel Randewich and Peter Henderson

PETALUMA, Calif./SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – At the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds north of San Francisco, Spanish is the language that dominates many conversations about shelters, work and how to survive the California wine country wildfires, one of the deadliest fire events to strike the Golden State.

The workers that tend vines, ferment wine, build homes and feed tourists in world-famous Napa and Sonoma counties are heavily Latino; Latinos count for more than a quarter of Sonoma’s population.

They also are among the worst hit by the fires that have killed more than 30 people, scorched over 190,000 acres (77,000 hectares) and destroyed more than a dozen wineries.

Flames bore down on a vineyard where Sofia Rivera, 50, was picking grapes at about 2 a.m. on Monday. She sped home, grabbed her five kids, and fled. On Friday, she piled donated diapers onto a stroller at the fairgrounds shelter in Petaluma, calculating her money will last only a week.

“There’s no work, and we don’t know if there will be work,” said Rivera, a widow and native of Michoacan, Mexico.

The Latino population of Sonoma and Napa counties grew by more than 60 percent each between 2000 and 2015, outpacing a 38 percent growth in the Bay Area as a whole, according to U.S. Census data provided by Sonoma County. And it still is rising.

Many of those are workers who have come to the country illegally and are particularly vulnerable now, said Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins. Her district includes some wine-making country and the Sonoma coast, whose beaches have been claimed by evacuees, including immigrants who feared immigration authorities would target them at shelters, she said.

“What we saw in my district was a huge flood of Latino evacuees to the coast,” she said. “Folks just went right past those shelters and they tried to get, I think, as far away from the fire as possible, but also beyond institutional help, on purpose.”

STARTING OVER

The less affluent would be hardest hit as wine country rebuilds, with owners of destroyed homes and an influx of construction workers competing for temporary housing and driving up prices, she said.

“We already had completely unaffordable housing costs for both rental and purchases, and those are only going to increase in the wake of this disaster,” Hopkins said. Some mobile homes were listed for sale in Santa Rosa for more than $150,000.

County officials have put out the word that immigration officials will not be chasing evacuees, but there is a clear sense of fear, said Ana Lugo, president of the North Bay Organizing Project. The group is organizing a fund for those evacuees in the country illegally, who are not likely to get federal aid.

She also is concerned that affluent communities burned down by the fire may get more local help than those less well off, a tale of two cities that Supervisor Hopkins hopes to avoid.

Armando Flores is likely to be one of those swinging hammers in the rebuilding of homes and entire communities.

A carpenter who came to California from Mexico four decades ago at the age of 16, and now a U.S. citizen, Flores left his valuable tools at a house he was working on. He fled to a shelter after getting a text message alert on Wednesday night.

He fears those tools may have been lost to flames. “But I left Mexico with nothing,” he said. “And I can start again with nothing.”

(Editing by Mary Milliken)

Fierce winds stir deadly California wildfires as teams search for victims

Fierce winds stir deadly California wildfires as teams search for victims

By Noel Randewich

SONOMA, Calif. (Reuters) – Fierce winds were expected to stir wildfires and test firefighters on Saturday in Northern California where the most lethal outbreak of wildfires in state history has killed 35 people and forced more than 90,000 residents from their homes.

The wind-driven blazes, which erupted on Sunday night in the heart of California’s renowned wine country, north of San Francisco, have destroyed an estimated 5,700 homes.

A total of 17 major wildfires – some encompassing several smaller blazes merged together – had consumed nearly 222,000 acres of dry brush, grasslands and trees across eight counties.

Ground crews on Friday gained ground on the wildfires on Friday as they raced to clear drought-parched vegetation along the southern flanks of fires, removing highly combustible fuels adjacent to populated areas before extreme heat and winds were forecast to revive over the weekend.

Winds were to intensify overnight and into Saturday with gusts of up to 55 mph (90 kph) along with 10 percent humidity, the service warned.

“If new fires start they could spread extremely rapidly,” said Brooke Bingaman, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sacramento, California in a video posted on Facebook. “Those fuels are super dry right now. This also could cause problems for the current wildfires and the firefighters who are trying to suppress them.”

Wildfire ripped through the Sonoma County town of Santa Rosa, where whole neighborhoods were reduced to landscapes of gray ash, smoldering debris and burned-out vehicles.

The 35 confirmed fatalities – 19 in Sonoma County – mark the greatest loss of life from a single fire event on record in California, surpassing the 29 deaths from the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.

Some victims were asleep when flames engulfed their homes, and many survivors had only minutes to flee.

With 235 people still missing on Friday in Sonoma County alone, and rubble from thousands of incinerated dwellings yet to be searched, authorities have said the number of fatalities from the so-called North Bay fires would likely climb.

The fires have thrown California’s wine-producing industry, and related tourism, into disarray at the end of the region’s annual grape harvest, damaging or destroying at least a dozen Napa Valley wineries.

Some 45 search-and-rescue teams and 18 detectives were deployed to scour obliterated neighborhoods for victims.

More than 90,000 residents have been evacuated, said Jaime Williams, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Governor Jerry Brown planned to visit the area with California’s two U.S. senators on Saturday.

“We’ll keep working day and night with our local and federal partners to fight these fires and help residents get back on their feet in these trying times,” he said in a statement.

Officials have said power lines toppled by gale-force winds the first night may have sparked the conflagration, though the official cause remained under investigation.

The picturesque town of Calistoga, at the northern end of Napa Valley, faced one of the biggest remaining hazards. Its 5,000-plus residents were ordered from their homes on Wednesday night as a fierce blaze dubbed the Tubbs fire crept to within 2 miles (3.2 km) of city limits.

On Friday, fires raged along mountain ridges overlooking Calistoga, threatening to rain embers onto the resort and spa destination if strong winds blow out of the north as predicted, Cal Fire spokesman Dennis Rein said.

“It’s surreal. It’s eerie,” Mayor Chris Canning told a local ABC affiliate as he surveyed the empty town on Friday. “It’s calm now and it’s giving Cal Fire an opportunity to really bang it down.”

The year’s wildfire season is one of the worst in history in the United States, with nearly 8.6 million acres (3.5 million hectares) burned, just behind 2012, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Lam, Dan Whitcomb, Steve Gorman and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.,; Gina Cherelus in New York, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Heather Somerville in San Francisco, Editing by Adrian Croft)

California woman rescues horses, yaks and cows from deadly wildfires

FILE PHOTO: A horse is seen along Highway 12 during the Nuns Fire in Sonoma, California, U.S., October 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo

By Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters) – The acrid smell of smoke borne on hurricane-strength winds greeted horse trainer Rebecca Cushman before dawn, her phone ringing repeatedly as people frantically sought help saving their animals from California’s deadly wildfires.

It was still dark on Monday morning when Cushman, 41, set out from her farm west of the conflagration, towing a four-horse trailer behind her white Dodge pickup truck.

She worked all day and into the night, loading four horses at a time from fire-ravaged farms and ranches in Sonoma and Napa counties, taking the animals back to her farm in West Petaluma before going out for more.

By Thursday, she had helped rescue 48 horses, several cows and even some yaks in the bucolic vineyard and farm country north of San Francisco hit by the state’s deadliest wildfires in nearly a century.

“We have dogs, goats, guinea fowl, chickens, ducks, donkeys, miniature horses and horses at our farm right now,” Cushman said on Thursday. “I just finished helping load yaks and cows.”

Firefighters began to gain ground on Thursday against blazes that have killed at least 31 people in Northern California and left hundreds missing amid mass evacuations in the heart of the state’s wine country. [nL2N1MO007][nL2N1MN1LB][nL2N1MN00H]

Animals are difficult to rescue in disasters like California’s fast-moving wildfires, as their owners must often choose between staying behind to care for them or fleeing to protect their own lives and those of their family members.

Some animals, including many rescued by Cushman, found refuge at privately owned farms outside the fire zone. Others were sheltered at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa.

The first calls there for help came in at about 12:30 a.m. on Monday, as winds of up to 75 miles per hour (121 km per hour) whipped fires throughout the state into dangerous conflagrations, said fairgrounds spokeswoman Leasha LaBruzzi.

By Thursday, the fairgrounds housed more than 300 horses, LaBruzzi said. It had also become a temporary home to 200 people who fled the fires with their pets.

POLICE ESCORT

Santa Rosa resident Christy Gentry, 43, who was staying at the fairgrounds, spent Monday morning helping round up and rescue horses at Mark West Stables, where she works, near her home.

She and her husband, Jeff, have no cellular service at their home, and their landline was knocked out by high winds on Sunday night, so they were fast asleep when the fires began.

They were awakened at midnight by the stable’s assistant trainer pounding on their bedroom window.

They ran to help evacuate the 26 horses that board at the stable. Christy Gentry’s job was to race out to the pastures, the sky black except for flames licking over the top of the mountain, bearing carrots to persuade anxious horses to come to the barn.

One, a dun-colored draft horse named Duncan, never liked getting into horse trailers, and he was particularly resistant that night.

As trainers and horse-haulers moved the animals, volunteers brought feed and hay. Cushman asked for contributions to her account at a local feed store, and quickly raised $8,000.

Exhausted, with a headache from the smoke, Cushman said on Thursday the size and unpredictability of the fires made rescues more chaotic than in past blazes.

She rushed to get to one property only to find the roads blocked. “We were later able to get a police escort to get those three horses out,” she said.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker)