Rain aids battle against Northern California fires
A steady rain Wednesday gave firefighters what is expected to be a short window to box in the Valley fire north of San Francisco. But the toll of the California wildfires continued to grow as authorities confirmed that two bodies had been found in the debris of the Butte fire in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains southeast of Sacramento.
Calaveras County Coroner Kevin Raggio said that the body of Mark McCloud, 66, was found Tuesday outside his home in Mountain Ranch. He refused to leave the scene, and his “home was overcome by the fire,” Raggio said. “He was definitely killed by the fire.”
Another man was found by cadaver dogs Tuesday in a subdivision of Mountain Ranch, Raggio said. He had also ignored advice to leave, and his house was overcome by fire.
The circumstances of the death were not known, and a coroner’s autopsy has been requested. Those fatalities followed the death of a 72-year-old woman who had refused initial advice to leave during the Valley fire’s early stages and later could not be rescued.
As weather and firefighters slowed the Valley fire, hundreds of evacuees — who had only days earlier escaped flames — were living in tents in a fairground, shivering in the rain and cold. The now-homeless had yet another worry to add to their troubles as reports surfaced of looters moving into the burned areas.
Amid numerous missing person reports, authorities said they would bring in search dogs to look for Leonard Neft, a 69-year-old former newspaper reporter who had told his family by telephone that he would try to escape his Anderson Springs home by driving to a side road and hiking out. His charred car was found three days later.
By Wednesday, the Valley fire had reached 70,000 acres and was 30% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It had destroyed 585 homes and hundreds of other structures and continued to threaten more than 7,600.
The Butte fire in Amador and Calaveras counties, which started Sept. 9, had burned 71,780 acres and was 45% contained. It had destroyed 233 homes, 175 outbuildings and threatened an additional 6,400 structures.
The Rough fire burning in the Sequoia National Forest was reported to be 67% contained and had burned 140,760 acres.
The White House on Wednesday said President Obama had assured Gov. Jerry Brown that he would seek changes in federal financing for wildfire response and prevention as well as press an agenda to address climate change, which Brown has repeatedly cited as contributing to California’s drought and fires.
The Valley fire is considered the ninth most-destructive wildfire in state history, Cal Fire said Wednesday. The Butte fire is the 14th.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office reported three arrests within less than 24 hours of individuals in the Valley fire burn area caught attempting to slip past road blockades, some posing as fire responders.
Two of those arrested were accused of attempting to use the disaster for their own gain. Deputies arrested one man who was in possession of cellular devices, a scorched wallet belonging to someone else, and a locked safe, as well as 13 obsidian points and archaeological artifacts.
They caught another suspect with power tools in his car that deputies said they believe were intended for break-ins.
Sheriff Brad Martin said law enforcement officers from multiple agencies were watching roads leading into the 100-square mile fire zone, but the best defense would be to allow residents to return to the area, a solution that still has no date.
At least a few residents are known to have ignored evacuation orders and stayed in the area that burned.
Phyllis Kelsey, 61, and her husband hunkered down in Middletown throughout the inferno.
Their home is surrounded by grass, and they were intent on saving it.
Around midnight, something triggered their solar alarm system. Outside a man was waving a flashlight. He turned out to be a sheriff’s deputy.
“They were walking our property,” said Kelsey, who chairs the board of directors of the Middletown Senior Center, which escaped damage. “They were doing house-to-house checks for looters.”
“It is starting to get frustrating,” said Ernest Pulido, a Hidden Valley Lake resident now living at the Calistoga Fairground in a tent with his wife and two children.
His house had withstood the fire and so far had not been looted, he said, adding that his mother-in-law’s home was ashes.
Pulido’s family had donned thin plastic rain ponchos provided by the Red Cross, and others in the encampment were throwing blue tarps over their tents to shelter from the cold rain.
“They,” he said — meaning state officials and anyone else who might be responsible for the disaster response — “have not told us anything. We have no direction. It is ridiculous.”
Within the evacuated fire zone, the activity was intently focused.
PG&E said it had about 800 workers out replacing downed power lines.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency had workers from the state doing a damage assessment that would allow Gov. Jerry Brown to seek a presidential declaration of disaster, necessary if the state is to seek federal assistance for impacted communities or displaced survivors.
Half of some 2,800 fire personnel were working to bulldoze containment lines and put out burning “sleeper” logs that threatened to reignite what timber remained standing, while the other half slept in tents, trailers and hotel rooms booked solid as far as an hour’s drive away.
To fuel the troops, a community of its own emerged in burned-out Middletown, where power generators lit up a gas station and market. Workers set up air mattresses to bunk and were behind the counter, making pizza for the emergency crews.
Firefighters who saw the now 4-day-old Valley fire jump a containment line Tuesday night and launch another march east regarded Wednesday’s rain and uncommon chill as a precious opportunity.
“Today is going to be a good day, ladies and gentlemen,” Cal Fire incident commander Robert Michael told responders. “Today is ... an important day because the weather is on our side.”
They had roughly one shift to take advantage of that good fortune, he said, because “after that it’s going to get hot and dry again and this thing may start all over.”
Times staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.
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