More Than 100 Missing Persons Reports Made in California Wildfires
Powerful wildfires fanned by strong winds ravaged parts of Northern California's wine country on Monday, killing at least 11 people and destroying some 1,500 structures.
The 15 wildfires which also engulfed a hotel and a trailer park in the city of Santa Rosa and sent smoke spewing as far south as San Francisco have collectively become amongst the most deadliest in California's history.
Pacific Gas & Electric said more than 94,000 customers were without power as of Tuesday morning, most of them in the North Bay Division and Sonoma area. Gas service was shut off to 30,000 customers, it said. The California Highway Patrol said it had rescued 44 people by helicopter.
All of the new fires started after 10 p.m. PT (1 a.m. ET) on Sunday, Pimlott said, bringing the total spread of more than 25 fires across the northern half of California to about 73,000 acres at what he called the worst possible time.
McClean said investigators were still trying to determine the origin of the blazes and called it a "meticulous process."
Californians are pushing their way through a phenomenon called the Santa Ana winds powerful systems that start inland and almost always blast hot, extremely dry air across Northern California and the southern California coast.
The hot, dry blasts are sometimes called los diablos, or "the devil winds," and they often create critical fire conditions.
