Multiple firestorms raged across the state’s bucolic wine country on Monday, resulting in at least 10 deaths, destroying more than 1,500 structures, emptying hospitals, dropping ashes as far away as San Francisco and forcing the panicked evacuation of tens of thousands of residents to crowded shelters.

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Bobcat fire grows to 50,539-acre, forces more evacuations With 14 different fires erupting throughout Northern California since late Sunday night, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Director Ken Pimlott said an estimated 20,000 people had been evacuated. He cautioned that the estimate of burned structures — the fifth highest ever from a group of California wildfires — was very conservative and said firefighters were too busy trying to save lives to focus on battling the blazes. Meanwhile, TV stations streamed images of devastated neighborhoods where every home had seemingly melted away.

By nightfall Monday, authorities were cautioning that the death toll would probably mount and warned people to stay away from the burned areas. Containment of the fires was minimal, but the hurricane-force winds that spread the fire Sunday night mercifully had died down.

Adding to the chaos was the scattered loss of cellphone coverage, power outages, confusion over shelter space, closed highways and city streets clogged with people fleeing the area. Combined, five of the larger fires alone had scorched more than 80,000 acres across parts of eight different counties, including Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Yuba.

Sonoma County had seven fire-related deaths, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Cal Fire confirmed three deaths, including one in Mendocino County and two in Napa. An elderly couple, ages 98 and 100, did not escape from a home in the Silverado Resort in Napa. There is no estimate on the number injured or missing, but Sgt. Spencer Crum of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office told ABC7 News 100 calls reporting a person missing had been received.

Fire dispatch records tell an astonishing story of fires breaking out almost simultaneously across Sonoma and Napa counties, apparently because of the winds. The mayhem began about 9:22 p.m. Sunday with a report of a vegetation fire near the intersection of highways 101 and 12. Over the next half hour, 19 emergency calls streamed into Sonoma County fire: falling trees, downed lines, structure fires, an exploding transformer. Dispatchers sent firefighters north, south, east and west. Officially, the causes are under investigation.

As homeowners literally ran for their lives in the smoky darkness, the strong winds pushed the fires and sent acrid smoke as far away as Santa Cruz by the time the sun came up.

“It was an inferno like you’ve never seen before,” said Marian Williams, who fled through the flames before dawn in a caravan with neighbors as one of the wildfires reached the vineyards and ridges of her small Sonoma County town of Kenwood.

Williams could feel the heat of the fire outside her car as she fled.

“Trees,” she said, “were on fire like torches.”

Around mid-morning, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in Napa, Sonoma and Yuba counties, authorizing the state’s National Guard to mobilize.

The two largest fires were the Atlas fire south of Lake Berryessa, which was burning as many as 25,000 acres by Monday evening, and the Tubbs fire, a 27,000-acre blaze that spread from Calistoga to Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, jumping Highway 101, and prompting police to completely shut down that major thoroughfare.

As Monday progressed, the Tubbs fire destroyed dozens of home in Journey’s End Mobile Home Park, located next to Kaiser Hospital in Santa Rosa. It obliterated a number of popular businesses: the luxury 124-room Fountaingrove Inn in Santa Rosa, the Hilton Sonoma Wine Country Hotel, Willi’s Wine Bar and Cricklewood restaurant on Old Redwood Highway, along with the Cardinal Newman High School campus, which lost half of its classrooms, library and main office.

Fountain Grove Inn Hotel in Santa Rosa burns pic.twitter.com/L442QIdWlV — Karl Mondon (@karlmondon) October 9, 2017

Local hospitals were not spared the fires’ wrath as several had to evacuate patients and staff. Sutter Hospital in Santa Rosa was emptied and some 130 patients had to be evacuated from the Kaiser Santa Rosa facility while others were taken away from Kaiser facilities in Napa. Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, which treated scores of fire victims and at least two people suffering from critical burns, lost its cell coverage during the day and had to put out a desperate call over a local TV channel for medical staff to call in immediately.

With so many fires, residents of Sonoma County struggled to figure out what roads to take, finding downed trees or flames blocking some routes. Also causing trouble was the 5,000-acre Nuns fire north of Glen Ellen, and the Redwood Complex fire, which had burned 19,000 acres in Mendocino County.

The flames left one ghastly scene after another: On a small side street off Silverado Trail, only the brick chimneys and foundations of several homes remained. The carcass of a horse and several goats lay blackened. The sad and grisly scenes were the aftermath of the terrifying inferno that only hours earlier had consumed everything in its path. Joe Beltrami woke to sheriffs deputies knocking on his door around 2 a.m ordering him and his wife to leave. They walked out to swirling embers and ash streaming down and a terrifying sight too close for comfort.

“It was just a wall of fire coming down the whole mountain,” Beltrami said. They started calling neighbors who live closer to the blaze to alert them of the danger. “They didn’t even know there was a fire.”

As the flames raced across the landscape, a number of iconic wineries were also consumed by flames. The Paradise Ridge Winery in Santa Rosa, home to spectacular views and a world-class outdoor sculpture garden, burned to the ground. Others included Nicholson Ranch in Sonoma and Frey Vineyards, a pioneer in organic and biodynamic wines, in Mendocino County’s Redwood Valley.

Several wineries in Napa’s Stag’s Leap District, one of the valley’s premier cabernet sauvignon growing regions, were burned in the Atlas fire, including Signorello Estates, while other vineyards remained under threat from blazes that stretched from Northern Napa Valley, near Calistoga, to Southern Napa along the Silverado Trail and Soda Canyon Road. It was not clear late Monday which of those wineries had survived.

Pro Football Hall of Famer and 49ers legend Ronnie Lott was among several sports celebrities to escape injury in the fires raging across the North Bay. Lott was evacuated from a hotel in Sonoma County just before the structure went up in flames, according to TMZ.

On Soda Canyon Road, retired Richmond firefighter Tony Carafa was using a hose to wet down the property around his home. Several homes on his street had already been destroyed.

Carafa, who had fought the horrific 1991 Oakland hills fire that destroyed 2,900 structures and killed 25 people, reflected on the similarities to the inferno ravaging his neighborhood and the rest of the county. He said the fact that many country roads in Napa County have no hydrants made matters worse. “No water and wind makes for a bad combination,” he said. “The fire was moving so fast, it was incredible.”

The status of Safari West, a private animal preserve in Sonoma County, was unclear after staffers were forced to evacuate, taking only some birds and a tortoise with them.

The couple who died in the Atlas fire in Napa was identified as Charles and Sara Rippey. Their remains were found Monday at their home on the 100 block of Westgate Drive.

“(Sara) was wheelchair-bound and (Charles) was 100 years old,” said Napa County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mark Foster. “I know they had a caretaker. She was barely able to get out in time and wasn’t able to get to them.”

Charles Rippey Jr. zipped up body bags containing his parents’ remains. Then he surveyed the damage and gently ran his fingers through the charred remnants of the home. His wife knelt nearby and pulled pieces from the debris with the help of two sheriff’s deputies.

Staff photographer Karl Mondon, staff writers Mark Gomez, Paul Rogers, Matthias Gafni, Jennifer Graue, Jessica Yadegaran and Jason Green, and The Associated Press contributed to this story.