More homes destroyed in California fires
Body found in car at new fire
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – California fire officials said Sunday a wildfire north of San Francisco destroyed another 162 homes, raising the number of homes destroyed to 1,050 and making it the third worst wildfire in the state’s history.
The tally brought the total number of homes destroyed in two wildfires burning in Northern California the past two weeks to nearly 1,600, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. Those fires killed five people, and on Sunday authorities announced that a body was found near the source of a new wildfire in Monterey County that destroyed or damaged 10 homes.
Firefighters found the man’s body inside a charred vehicle after the fire began Saturday near the community of Jamesburg. Investigators were investigating his death as a possible suicide, Monterey County Sheriff’s spokesman John Thornburg said.
Farther north, two massive wildfires continued to threaten thousands more homes.
Damage-assessment teams have counted 1,050 homes burned in Lake County, many of them in the town of Middletown, CalFire spokesman Daniel Berlant said.
Teams have completed about 80 percent of damage assessment, focusing largely on homes, Berlant said. They have not determined how many additional structures, such as sheds, barns and other outbuildings, were destroyed.
“Our damage assessment team continues to go in and count home by home, structure by structure. But they still have a ways to go before they are finished,” Berlant said.
The fire, which killed at least three people and charred 118 square miles, was 69 percent contained. About 6,500 homes remained threatened by the fire, which ranks as the third worst fire in California history based on total structures burned. A 1991 fire in the Oakland Hills ranks as California’s dead-liest fire and its worst in the number of homes destroyed.
Meanwhile, another 545 homes were destroyed by a separate blaze that killed at least two people and has burned 110 square miles in the Sierra Nevada foothills. That blaze was 72 percent contained Sunday. Even though it continued to threaten thousands of structures, all evacuation orders were lifted.