Deadly Wildfires Continue To Burn Across Northern California

Fires in Northern California have killed at least 15 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes and businesses. Firefighters are working to contain the fast-moving blazes in the face of high winds.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Wildfires are burning in northern California - a number of them in a number of counties, including Napa and Sonoma. More than 2,000 homes and businesses have been burnt. At least 15 people are dead, and authorities warn that number could go up. Napa County Fire Chief Barry Biermann says an investigation is underway to see how the fire started.

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CHIEF BARRY BIERMANN: It doesn't take much to start a fire, but there is nothing to indicate what the cause is, just that they're all being investigated right now.

MCEVERS: One of the hardest hit places is Santa Rosa in Sonoma County. That's where NPR's Nathan Rott is now. Hey there, Nate.

NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.

MCEVERS: Where are you in Santa Rosa, and what are you seeing?

ROTT: So I'm at a mobile home park. It's on the north end of the city. The mobile home park is called Journey's End, and I'm looking at destruction that's honestly kind of hard to describe. The manager of the property here told me that there were 160 trailers here. By his count, 125 of them are gone. And I mean they're gone gone. It's just a field of still-smoldering and twisted metal.

All that's left for a lot of these homes is the corrugated metal roofs that were on top of them, steel beams, metal patio furniture. Basically anything that's metal is what's still standing. I'm looking at a - the charred remains of a file cabinet and a - like, the husk of an oven, what used to be a kitchen in one of these mobile homes. One of the residents who I talked to here just said it feels like an atomic bomb went off in the middle of the property.

MCEVERS: Were people who live there are able to get out in time?

ROTT: Yes, as far as we know right now. Many of the residents here have been described to me as older retirees, people who had lived here for a long time. The managers and his wife said that they ran from property to property on Sunday night, Monday morning when the fire was really going, trying to wake people up when they saw that the fire was coming over the hill here. People were helping each other escape and drive away.

And it didn't sound like they had much time at all to get out. The fire was on them really, really fast. And so obviously the concern here is that in that rush, some people may not have gotten out. I've walked around, and there are still cars that are parked in some of the driveways here - or remains of cars, I should say. And it was in the middle of the night, and the manager's wife said that they didn't get answers at some of the doors they knocked on. So my understanding is that police are going to come through here later today and search the remains of each home to make sure that there aren't any people that were trapped inside.

MCEVERS: Do you have a sense yet of what caused this fire to move so fast?

ROTT: Well, yeah - the wind. We know that there's been really hot, dry conditions here and what have been basically described as tempest-like winds that really, really...

MCEVERS: Yeah.

ROTT: ...Drove this thing on Monday morning. I talked to a few people here at this mobile home park who said it felt like they were in the middle of a hurricane. The doors were banging. Patio chairs were being flung around. And when you have wind that's blowing that hard, it not only makes the fire burn hotter by supplying a bunch of fresh oxygen to it, but it also carries embers from the fire long distances ahead and will start more fires in areas that are dry ahead.

So in the case of this trailer park, those embers actually carried the fire over a road and into this park. I heard people saying they got - there was embers landing in palm throngs, where the fires really started going. One of the residents actually described it as like a Roman candle going off.

MCEVERS: Wow. I mean, these fires are still burning. Is there any sense of, like, how soon or what kind of progress firefighters are making in containing them?

ROTT: To my knowledge, there's been very little progress in containing this fire specifically. I'm not at the flaming front. I haven't seen how much fire activity is going on currently. But I do know that this is still an active fire. Authorities are describing it as such.

And I think it's important for people to hear that when you're talking about winds like we're talking about here, there is very little that firefighters can do. The fire is burning too hot, too fast to stop, and you have those spot fires starting in front of it because of the embers. So basically the winds really need to die down for firefighters to start - get a handle on this thing.

It's been pretty still here for most of the day, but forecasters are calling for more winds going into the evening. We should also note that this is only one of more than a dozen fires burning in California right now - many up here in northern California but some down where you are, Kelly, in southern California as well. So resources are really strained statewide.

MCEVERS: Nate, you've been a firefighter. Have you ever experienced anything like these fires in and around Santa Rosa?

ROTT: You know, I've seen it reporting. In my experience firefighting, I was in a rural part of Montana, and one of the things that's really striking here is - I mean, this is in the middle of a city, and I've never seen this much destruction in a place where you would look at it probably on a normal day and say there's no way that would burn.

MCEVERS: NPR's Nathan Rott in Santa Rosa in northern California, thanks a lot.

ROTT: Thanks, Kelly.

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