California wildfire death toll: 2 firefighters, great-grandmother, 2 children

REDDING, California — Two young children and their 70-year-old great-grandmother died in the wildfire that swept into the city of Redding with devastating speed, their family said Saturday, and a bulldozer operator who died working to contain the fire was identified as an 81-year-old man from a small community east of Sacramento.

A tearful Sherry Bledsoe confirmed the deaths of her grandmother, Melody Bledsoe, and her children, James Roberts, 5, and Emily Roberts, 4.

The fatalities brought the death toll to five since the so-called Carr Fire started burning Monday. It exploded Thursday, jumped the Sacramento River and entered the Redding city limits.


The Shasta County Sheriff’s Department identified the bulldozer operator as Don Ray Smith of Pollock Pines. He was overtaken by flames while on the job and his body was found Thursday.

Authorities previously identified another firefighter fatality as Redding Fire Department Inspector Jeremy Stoke, who was killed on the job Thursday night. Details have not been released.

Donna Araiza, founder of the Alyssa Araiza “Wings of Angels” organization for seriously ill children, said Stoke regularly donated to her group, as well as the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

“He and his wife, Alyson, were always supporting us,” Araiza told the Record Searchlight, Redding’s daily newspaper. “He was a generous and a good man.”

The Bledsoes lived near the Keswick Estates neighborhood, and their home, like many around it, was reduced to ashes. The tragedy leaves Ed Bledsoe without his wife and the great-grandchildren he doted on.

“He lost everything. Everything. You can’t lose more than family. And then you lose everything on top of that?” said Don Kewley, whose girlfriend is one of the Bledsoes’ granddaughters. “The man’s got the shirt on his back and the pants on his waist. Like that’s it.”

Ed Bledsoe had headed out for supplies Thursday thinking the flames were far away, but while shopping he received a desperate call from his great-grandson. The boy said he had to come back to the home. Flames were closing in.

“We need your help,” the boy said, according to Jason Decker, who is the boyfriend of another Bledsoe granddaughter.


Kewley said the family believed the area was not in imminent danger and Melody Bledsoe had no car.

Ed Bledsoe rushed home, but was turned back by police. The fire was raging and there were walls of flames.

Decker took the day off work Friday and drove his motorcycle to the home to look for members of the family but only found the smoldering remains of the house.

A day later, what remained of the Bledsoe property was surrounded with crime scene tape.

Decker said his own children played with James and Emily and they had trick-or-treated together.

“I don’t even have any more tears to cry,” Decker said. “But I keep finding them.”   /kga

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

New wildfires sweep through California, burning homes

LOS ANGELES, United States — Firefighters toiled in stifling heat Saturday on the lines of destructive wildfires across the U.S. West, making progress against some blazes while struggling to tame others that have forced evacuations of hundreds of homes.

In heat-stricken Southern California, powerful winds that sent an overnight inferno hopscotching through the Santa Barbara County community of Goleta vanished in the morning, allowing firefighters to extinguish smoldering ruins of an estimated 20 structures, including homes.

Authorities announced that mandatory evacuation orders were being greatly reduced and many of the 2,500 people who fled Friday night would be able to return home by late afternoon.


County Fire Chief Eric Peterson thanked residents for heeding the call to evacuate, allowing firefighters to focus on fire suppression rather than rescues.

“There very likely would have been fatalities last night had those evacuations not occurred,” Peterson said.

The fire’s spread was stopped at about 100 acres (40.5 hectares) in a neighborhood where some houses were in ruins while homes next door were intact.

Eric Durtschi stood outside his destroyed house, where a burned-out car stood in the driveway and kids’ bicycles were strewn about.

Durtschi, his wife and six children had left Utah and moved in just a few weeks ago. He said he hadn’t yet told his two oldest children their home was gone. He managed to collect his severely burned vintage guns, hoping to salvage them.

A neighbor’s home across the street was spared. The man had stayed through the night spraying down other people’s houses.

Elsewhere in Southern California, firefighters increased containment of a central San Diego County fire that rapidly spread over 400 acres (162 hectares), destroyed 18 structures and damaged eight, and a wildfire in the San Bernardino National Forest was holding at 1.5 square miles (404 hectares) and forced evacuation of about 700 homes in the mountain community of Forest Falls.

Fires also burned on the Marine Corps’ sprawling Camp Pendleton base in northern San Diego County.



Among new fires Saturday, a blaze erupted on a steep mountain slope just above the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank and helicopters pounded it with water to try to keep it from getting out of hand.

Southern California fires began erupting Friday as strong high pressure over the West spawned an epic heat wave that saw parts of Los Angeles broil in temperatures up to 117 degrees (47.2 Celsius). There was little relief overnight.

“Temperatures at 8 a.m. were ridiculously over 100 degrees” in foothills near Forest Falls and many inland valleys, the National Weather Service said.

Forecasters said the region’s siege of heat would gradually ease through the weekend, but the unstable air mass unleashed downpours that triggered flash-flood warnings for the mountains northeast of Los Angeles.

Further up north and just south of the California-Oregon border, the 34-square-mile (88-square-kilometer) Klamathon Fire in rural Siskiyou County was just 5 percent contained. The body of a resident was found Friday in the ruins of a home, among 15 destroyed structures tallied so far.

Authorities described “extreme fire behavior with movement in multiple directions,” with threats to the California communities of Hornbrook and Hilt as well as Colestin, Oregon. Ray Haupt, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, said losses included homes and livestock.

Elsewhere in California, the 138-square-mile (357-square-kilometer) County Fire northwest of Sacramento was nearly 50 percent contained. Ten structures were counted destroyed but damage assessments were continuing.

With fires occurring statewide, a Colorado-based Boeing 747-400 supertanker was deployed to California.

Scott McLean, deputy chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the supertanker was undergoing checks at an airfield outside Sacramento.

Software issues needed to be resolved before the aircraft owned by Global SuperTanker Services of Colorado Springs could be activated under a call-when-needed contract.

In Utah, meanwhile, authorities allowed the return of some residents who fled a wildfire near a popular fishing lake 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Salt Lake City. The blaze has burned about 75 square miles (193 square kilometers) and destroyed 90 structures, including homes, cabins, sheds and garages, since starting Sunday in the mountains.

In Colorado, firefighters took advantage of occasional rainstorms to extend their containment lines at several large wildfires.

In the south, crews Saturday contained about 45 percent of a 167-square-mile (433-square-kilometer) fire that has destroyed more than 130 homes, while in Rocky Mountain ski country firefighters from 20 states were battling an 8-square-mile (22-square-kilometer) wildfire above the Roaring Fork Valley. Commanders said they hoped for one-third containment by late Sunday.

Crews also had 50 percent containment of a southwestern Colorado fire that has blackened 85 square miles (220 square kilometers) north of Durango. Authorities said Saturday that afternoon storms could produce flash floods and mudslides in burn scars.

And in central Colorado’s Park County, crews encircled a third of a spotty fire that forced the Buffalo Creek Wilderness to close. A  stretch of busy U.S. Highway 285 between Fairplay and Antero Junction reopened Saturday. /cbb

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net