Firefighters make gains in California

SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- A fifth day of desperate firefighting in California wine country offered a glimmer of hope Friday as crews batting the flames reported their first progress toward containing the blazes, and hundreds more firefighters poured in to join the effort.

The scale of the disaster also became clearer as authorities said the fires had chased an estimated 90,000 people from their homes and destroyed at least 5,700 homes and businesses. The death toll rose to 36, making this the deadliest and most destructive series of wildfires in California history.

Seventeen large fires were still burning across Northern California, with more than 9,000 firefighters attacking the flames.

"The emergency is not over, and we continue to work at it, but we are seeing some great progress," said the state's emergency operations director, Mark Ghilarducci.

Crews have arrived from Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North and South Carolina, Oregon and Arizona. Other teams are from as far as Canada and Australia.

Since igniting Sunday in spots across eight counties, the blazes have reduced entire neighborhoods to ash and rubble.

With hundreds still reported missing, the death toll was expected to keep rising. Individual fires including the Oakland Hills blaze of 1991 killed more people than any one of the current blazes, but no collection of simultaneous fires in California has ever led to so many deaths, authorities said.

Dozens of search-and-rescue personnel at a mobile-home park in Santa Rosa carried out the grim task Friday of searching for the remains of people who did not escape in time. Fire tore through Santa Rosa early Monday, leaving only a brief window for people to flee.

[INTERACTIVE MAP: Active wildfires in the U.S.]

Workers were looking for two people missing from the park. They found one set of remains, mostly bone fragments, and continued looking for the other, said Sonoma County Sgt. Spencer Crum.

To help in the search, the Alameda County sheriff's office near San Francisco sent specialized equipment, including drones with 3-D cameras and five dogs trained to sniff out human remains.

The influx of outside help offered critical relief to firefighters who have been working with little rest since the blazes started.

"It's like pulling teeth to get firefighters and law enforcement to disengage from what they are doing out there," said fire official Barry Biermann. "They are truly passionate about what they are doing to help the public, but resources are coming in. That's why you are seeing the progress we're making."

In addition to manpower, equipment deliveries have poured in. Crews were using 840 fire engines from across California and another 170 sent from around the country.

Before dawn, four firetrucks rolled out of Eastside Fire and Rescue in Issaquah, Wash., part of three King County strike teams. The 50 firefighters in 16 vehicles rolled south for an 18-day deployment.

"These guys are trained in wildland fires, and this is what they love to do," Eastside Fire Chief Jeff Clark said.

Although they pitch in elsewhere in Washington and Oregon, Eastside has not sent crews to California since 2007.

Two of the largest fires in Napa and Sonoma counties were at least 25 percent contained by Friday, which marked "significant progress," said Ken Pimlott, chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. But he cautioned that crews would face more gusty winds, low humidity and higher temperatures. Those conditions were expected to take hold later Friday and persist into the weekend.

As the fires raged, many people were still searching for loved ones and picking through the ashes of their homes, both mentally and physically exhausted by the trauma of the past week.

"It wears you out," said winemaker Kristin Belair, who was driving back from Lake Tahoe to her as-yet-undamaged home in Napa. "Anybody who's been in a natural disaster can tell you that it goes on and on. I think you just kind of do hour by hour almost."

Smoke from the blazes hung thick over the grape-growing region and drifted south to the San Francisco Bay Area. Face masks were becoming a regular accessory.

Air quality levels in the Bay Area plunged to the same unhealthy level as China's notoriously polluted capital, sending people to emergency rooms and forcing schools to close and people to wear masks when they step outside.

Air quality in most of the region Thursday and Friday was as bad as smog-choked Beijing, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

"We have unprecedented levels of smoke and particles in the air that we normally don't see," said Ralph Borrmann, a spokesman for the district.

He called it the worst air quality ever recorded in many parts of the Bay Area.

Some members of the Oakland Raiders were wearing masks during workouts Thursday. The National Football League has been exploring options to move Sunday's game between the Raiders and the Los Angeles Chargers if air quality makes it necessary.

Information for this article was contributed by Olga R. Rodriguez, Daisy Nguyen and Martha Mendoza of The Associated Press.

A Section on 10/14/2017