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 The latest tally, up from Monday's estimate of 400 homes razed,
came as firefighters gained some ground against the blaze, which
erupted on Saturday and raced through several communities in the
hills north of Napa County's wine-producing region.
Thousands of residents were forced to flee, many without warning as
neighborhoods burned around them. One elderly shut-in was later
discovered to have perished in her home, and authorities have not
ruled out finding additional victims.
Ana Malachowski, 33, was back in the devastated village of
Middletown on Tuesday, picking through ruins of her brother's home
as he tried to direct her by cell phone to spots in the rubble where
jewelry and other items might be salvaged.
"I'm just numb," she said, recounting how she and neighbors tried in
vain to battle flames with garden hoses on Saturday before giving up
to join in the evacuation.
Her own house survived, she said, but added, "This whole town is a
big family. You can't say, 'This family lost their home and this one
didn't.'"
Lake County sheriff's deputies began escorting some evacuees back to
their properties to briefly tend to pets or livestock that were left
behind.
 But authorities said conditions in fire-ravaged areas remained
unsafe, with downed power lines and other hazards. Residents whose
homes remained intact would not be able to reoccupy their houses for
at least another couple of days.
An estimated 13,000 residents remained displaced by evacuations,
while the blaze, dubbed the Valley Fire, still posed a potential
threat to some 9,000 buildings in the fire zone, roughly 50 miles
(80 km) west of Sacramento, the state capital.
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Doug
Pittman said Monday night that the fire's latest advance was mostly
toward hillsides and mountains away from heavily populated areas.
But the fire was reported especially active on Tuesday near the
small mountain town of Loch Lomond and the Aetna Springs resort.
By Tuesday evening, the blaze had devoured more than 67,000 acres
(27,0000 hectares)of timber, brush and grass left parched by four
years of drought and weeks of extreme summer heat.
MAKING HEADWAY
As darkness fell across Northern California containment of the fire,
a measure of how much of its perimeter has been enclosed within
buffer lines carved through vegetation by ground crews, stood at 30
percent, up from 15 percent earlier in the day, Cal Fire said.
Water-dropping helicopters and airplane tankers grounded by thick
smoke during the first days of the fire returned to the skies as
visibility improved on Monday and Tuesday.
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Temperatures have also cooled and winds have eased since the fire's
peak on Saturday and early Sunday, when flames raced unchecked over
40,000 acres in just 12 hours.
The speed of the blaze caught area residents off-guard, forcing many
to flee in chaotic evacuations through gauntlets of fire as
surrounding houses and trees went up in flames.
Roughly half of Middletown, a town of about 1,500 residents, was
left in ruin, with twisted, blackened debris strewn over charred
foundations of buildings reduced to ash. A row of burned-out cars
stood next to what remained of a flattened apartment house, and the
charred hulks of more vehicles filled a lot where an auto mechanic
shop once stood.
Four firefighters were hospitalized with burns they suffered in the
early hours of the blaze. More than 2,300 personnel were on the fire
lines as of Tuesday, Cal Fire said.
The 585 homes known destroyed represents the greatest property loss
from a single wildfire among the scores of conflagrations that have
raged across the drought-stricken U.S. West so far this year,
according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
Although the damage has yet to be quantified, the Valley Fire could
become the largest insurance loss for a Northern California wildfire
since a 1991 Oakland firestorm, said Mark Bove, a senior research
meteorologist for New Jersey-based Munich Reinsurance America.
By comparison that calamity destroyed 3,200 buildings, with an
industry-wide insured loss of about $3 billion, he said.
A separate blaze raging since Wednesday in the western Sierras near
the former gold mining town of Jackson has destroyed 233 homes and
175 outbuildings, with some 10,000 people displaced by evacuations
there, officials said. The so-called Butte Fire was 40 percent
contained.
(Additional reporting from Los Angeles by Steve Gorman and Dan
Whitcomb; Additional reporting in Middletown by John Russell and
Alan Devall; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Andrew Hay and Lisa
Shumaker)
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