Northern California wildfire kills 1, destroys 400 homes

Mandatory evacuations have been ordered in several communities, including Cobb, Middletown, Loch Lomond, Hidden Valley Lake, and areas around Butts Canyon Road up to the Napa County line.

The Valley Fire has expanded to 61,000 acres, has five percent containment and has moved into three counties: Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties. Fire officials say it is spreading at a rate they have not seen in 30 years, reports CBS News correspondent Danielle Nottingham.

California Gov. Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency as firefighters in the state’s north battling expanding wildfires, intensified by a prolonged drought, that have spread to tens of thousands of acres north and east of San Francisco, Capital Public Radio in Sacramento reports. About 6,400 homes are still threatened by these monster fires, according to Berlant, though some evacuation orders linked to the Butte fire have been lifted. State and local agencies are working together to find out more details on the death, as well as determining how many people are accounted for, he added.

Crews had gained little control of the 95-square-mile blaze, which also damaged water distribution facilities and a massive complex of geothermal power plants known as the Geysers.

Daniel Berlant, public information officer for the California department of forestry and fire protection, or Cal Fire, was quoted as saying that “this (Valley Fire) is one of those fires that has been so fast moving”. The week will end drier and warmer.

However, Lake County Sheriff’s Office stated that they are investigating the possible fatality.

Firefighters create a firebreak near a home in Middletown, Calif., on Sunday, September 13, 2015. On the west side of town, house after house was charred to their foundations, with only blackened appliances and twisted metal garage doors still recognizable. They remained hospitalized in stable condition. The fire continued to grow through the night even though temperatures were down, the humidity was up and the wind had calmed.

Officials say across the western United States, $1.23 billion have been spent so far this year, and 30,000 firefighters have been mobilized. Video shows entire stretches of neighborhoods reduced to ash and residents escaping burned-out homes.

“As a result of the Valley Fire, combined with the drought conditions and other wildfires burning in the state, California’s air quality has significantly deteriorated”, the governor said in his emergency declaration.

Brown had already declared a state of emergency for a separate 102-square-mile wildfire about 70 miles southeast of Sacramento that has destroyed at least 81 homes and turned the grassy, tree-studded Sierra Nevada foothills an eerie white.