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 Two men and an elderly, disabled woman have been killed by the
so-called Valley Fire, which has scorched 73,700 acres (29,825
hectares) just north of Napa County's wine-producing region,
according to the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Authorities were still searching on Friday for people who had been
reported missing, said Lake County Undersheriff Chris Macedo,
although he could not provide an exact tally.
Two more people, who authorities said defied evacuation orders, lost
their lives in the separate Butte Fire, still burning more than a
week after it erupted more than 100 miles (160 km) to the east in
the Sierra Nevada foothills, in California's Gold Rush country.
Ranking as the most destructive wildfires in California this year,
the two conflagrations together have blackened roughly 145,000 acres
(58,000 hectares), laid waste to more than 950 homes, and forced
some 23,000 people to evacuate.
Cooler conditions, rain and lighter winds have helped firefighters
gain additional ground in recent days, though higher temperatures
forecast for coming days could pose a challenge, the California
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said.
Containment of the Valley Fire, a measure of how much of its
perimeter has been enclosed within buffer lines carved through
vegetation by ground crews, was at 45 percent.
Several communities forced to flee the massive blaze were allowed to
return home starting late Friday, Lake County officials said.
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In the Sierra foothills to the east, the Butte Fire was 63 percent
contained late Friday, Cal Fire said.
Fire officials say the two blazes are emblematic of an intense
wildfire season that is shaping up as one of the state's fiercest on
record, with much of September and all of October, historically the
worst two months of the year, still ahead.
Property losses from the Valley Fire - 585 homes and hundreds more
buildings - stand as the highest among the thousand of wildfires
that have raged across the entire drought-stricken western United
States this summer. The Butte Fire alone has destroyed 365 homes.
In addition to the five deaths attributed to the two blazes, four
firefighters were hospitalized with burns on Saturday in the first
hours after the Valley Fire broke out.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jamse
Dalgleish)
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