Residents reckon with rising death toll and catastrophic devastation, as one of state’s deadliest wildfires burns through wine country north of San Francisco

Northern California wildfires continued to blaze mostly unabated on Tuesday as local residents reckoned with a growing death toll, catastrophic losses and their fears for those still missing.

As of Tuesday night at least 17 people had died in 17 major fires across California, according to Cal Fire, the agency responsible for fire protection, as the state notched one of the deadliest fire days in its history. More than 2,000 structures have been destroyed, and the Sonoma County sheriff has received 240 missing-person reports, though 57 people have since been located.

Play Video 0:13 Sheriff’s deputy drives through raging blaze in California – video

“She was frantic, she was exhausted,” Amy Lynn Caplan said of her friend Linda, a woman in her mid-50s who was evacuating her retirement facility in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, on Monday. Caplan said that Linda, whose surname she did not want to provide, seemed disoriented and was having trouble navigating amid the confusion.

Wildfires cause destruction and chaos in California – in pictures Read more

“She’s not tech-savvy, she doesn’t know how to use Google Maps or anything like that, and the battery on her cellphone died.” That was the last Caplan heard of her.

About 20,000 people have been evacuated, and Vice-President Mike Pence announced on Tuesday that Donald Trump had approved a major disaster declaration, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to mobilize additional equipment and resources. Investigators are trying to determine the cause of the fires.

The largest conflagration is in California’s wine country, about 50 miles north of San Francisco. Fires there are at 0% containment, which means that firefighters have not cleared vegetation from the fire’s perimeter.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Smoke covers the sun as a wildfire from the Santa Rosa and Napa Valley moves through the area on 10 October. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Efforts to locate the missing are hamstrung because the fire has affected cellphone and internet connectivity. “We want people to know we are in their shoes,” said Amy Head, the fire captain spokeswoman for Cal Fire. “We’re having just as many issues as they are as far as getting hold of people, being able to communicate.”

In the town of Santa Rosa on Tuesday, an acrid yellow cloud lay over the city. Charred palm trees loomed over the highway, where wooden medians continued to burn and smoke. And in hushed subdivisions in the northern suburbs, the devastation was absolute.

These blocks once boasted single family homes with front yards, back yards, and side yards – “room to breathe”, said Lindsay Mueller, who moved into her childhood home here with her two sons a few years ago. On Tuesday, all that remained were mounds of smoking ash, a few brick chimneys, scorched trees and burnt-out cars.

“That’s my bed frame,” Mueller said, pointing to a twisted pile of metal half buried in rubble. The bookkeeper had been at the home when the fire came in the middle of the night.

“There were no sirens, no warning,” Mueller said. The family escaped with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.

They were the only people digging through the rubble on Tuesday afternoon, finding here a doll’s head, there some shattered Christmas dishes.

Mueller’s father sifted through debris with the metal head of a shovel, the handle long gone in the fire. Asked whether they were looking for anything in particular, Mueller sighed. “Anything. Just anything.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Coffey Park neighborhood of Santa Rosa before and after the fire. Photograph: AP

She held a motley selection of salvaged items in one hand: a pink porcelain heart, a measuring cup, a piece of broken china.

The fires, which officials have described as “unprecedented”, were fanned by gusts of wind that reached speeds of 50-60mph on Sunday night. In California, “we see 20 to 30 new fires a day, it’s just that these winds really caused these fires to grow rapidly,” said Cal Fire spokeswoman Heather Williams. “Wind-driven fires are a normal occurrence,” she said, but these are “definitely out of the norm”.

It appears that some of the hardest hit were those for whom it was hardest to escape.

“It’s heartbreaking to think that many of the fallen represent our most vulnerable, in some cases senior citizens who simply were not able to escape the flames that overcame their homes,” said Pence.

Local reports said that Charles Rippey, 100, and his wife, Sara, 99, died in their Napa home after it was quickly overcome by flames. “The only thing worse would have been if one survived without the other,” their granddaughter told KTVU.

At the emergency shelter in Santa Rosa where she has spent the past two nights, a woman named Robin said had been asleep in her apartment around 1.30am on Monday morning when the smoke filled the air and the whines of her pets woke her up. Looking out the window, she saw flames just across the road, about 50 yards (45m) away.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest The fast-moving wildfire in northern California has destroyed hundreds of structures. Photograph: Thosh/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

“I just thought, ‘We’re out of here,’” said Robin, who declined to provide her last name because she is a survivor of domestic violence. “It was enough to freak anyone out.” Her pink backpack held few of her belongings – a spare bra, a miniature box of Frosted Flakes.

One man struggled to maintain his composure. Already going through a difficult divorce, he had just learned that his home had burned down. He wanted to speak to his therapist, but couldn’t get through.

Caplan, the woman whose friend is missing and who lives in the town of Pacifica, south of San Francisco, said she had decided for the time being not to call the emergency services to report her friend missing. “They’re overloaded.” All she can do is wait for her phone to ring.