Officials on Thursday confirmed seven deaths in a Northern California wildfire, bringing the total death toll to 10 and making it the year’s deadliest fire in the state so far.
In addition to the deaths, 16 people remain missing, according to The Associated Press. Sandy Butler and her husband, who said they would attempt to shelter in a pond to avoid the blaze, are among those unaccounted for.
“We’re still hoping and praying for good news,” Jessica Fallon, the mother of two of the Butlers’ grandchildren, told the AP. “Everything is replaceable, but not my grandparents’ lives. I’d rather lose everything than those two. They kind of held the family together.”
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Crews had contained about half of the fire, which had been burning for weeks, before winds whipped it back up Tuesday. Thousands of buildings have been destroyed in the fire, located about 125 miles northeast of San Francisco.
Winds will likely die down this week, forecasters said, and the density of the smoke has somewhat reduced the temperature in the area. More than 48,000 square miles have burned in 2020, according to the AP.
The blaze, known as the North Complex Fire, is the 10th biggest on record thus far. On Thursday, officials lifted an evacuation warning for the town of Paradise, where a 2018 fire destroyed 19,000 buildings and killed more than 80 people.
All total, 29 wildfires are burning across the state, in areas ranging from the California-Oregon border to the far south of the state.
Butte County spokeswoman Amy Travis said the coronavirus pandemic has also complicated the response to the fires.
“COVID has changed the way we do sheltering,” she said, according to the AP. “We don’t have a lot of hotel rooms here in Butte County, and a lot of them are definitely busy with people that have already made their own hotel arrangements for evacuations.”
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Death toll from Northern California fire rises to 10 | TheHill - The Hill
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