[van id=”us/2017/10/09/wildfires-rage-in-californias-wine-country-orig-trnd-lab.cnn”]
(AP) A Northern California county is reporting two more people were killed by a blaze in their area, raising the total number of fatalities in the region’s wildfires to at least 13.
Mendocino County Sheriff Thomas Allman said Tuesday the victims died in Redwood Valley, a town of 2,000 people. A person was reported killed in the same town on Monday.
Allman says some people refused to leave their homes in communities that were destroyed by a wildfire.
He says the sheriff’s office and other law enforcement officials well go check those communities later Tuesday to hopefully find people who are safe.
Wildfires are burning in several areas in Northern California.
Authorities say at least 100 people have been injured, and as many as 1,500 homes and businesses destroyed.
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9:50 a.m.
A Northern California wildfire has destroyed about half of a Catholic high school and left some 620 students without school for the rest of the week.
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports that the library, main office and portable classrooms of Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa are burned.
Principal Graham Rutherford estimated that up to 18 of the school’s 35 classrooms are likely destroyed. He said the challenge now is to determine how to use the classroom space that remains.
Other schools in the area were also heavily damaged or destroyed.
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9:25 a.m.
An official has identified a couple killed when a blaze destroyed their Napa County home.
Napa County Sheriff John Robertson said Tuesday that 100-year-old Charles Rippey and his wife, 98-year-old Sara Rippey, died inside their home.
The couple’s granddaughter, Ruby Gibney, told Oakland television station KTVU on Monday that their home was quickly ravaged by the fire and they were unable to get out.
Gibney says they had recently celebrated 75 years of marriage.
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8:40 a.m.
State authorities are deploying more firefighters and law enforcement officials to areas devastated by wildfires raging in Northern California.
Brad Alexander, a spokesman of the governor’s Office of Emergency Services, says hundreds more firefighters from throughout the state will join the fight Tuesday. He says California has also asked for fire crews from the U.S. Forest Service in Nevada.
The blazes burning in several counties were at zero percent containment Tuesday.
Alexander says more law enforcement officials will be sent to help with evacuations and guard against looting.
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7:30 a.m.
A Northern California official has confirmed that a person died trying to flee a blaze in Yuba County, bringing the total number of fatalities to 11.
Yuba County spokesman Russ Brown said Tuesday that the unidentified person was in a vehicle fleeing from the town of Loma Rica, ran off a back road and became trapped in the blaze.
Brown tells the San Francisco Chronicle that the person died early Monday.
Authorities on Monday confirmed seven fire-related deaths in Sonoma County, two in Napa County and one in Mendocino County.
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7:03 a.m.
A wildfire that has burned nearly a dozen square miles among Southern California suburbs is still just 5 percent contained and authorities say the thousands of people who evacuated will not be going home soon.
Anaheim police Sgt. Daron Wyatt says the fire remains a threat to about 3,500 Orange County homes Tuesday morning and neighborhoods might not open until Wednesday.
There’s concern that the fire could spread into Cleveland National Forest.
The fire began Monday morning in the Anaheim Hills about 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles and was rapidly spread by the region’s notorious warm, dry and gusty Santa Ana winds.
The National Weather Service says those conditions should ease through the day.
The Orange County fire has destroyed two dozen structures, including homes and outbuildings.
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6:20 a.m.
Authorities say a new blaze is threatening homes near a Northern California city already battling unforgiving wildfires.
Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Summer Black says flames began coming over a ridge shortly after 11 p.m. Monday in an area bordering Santa Rosa’s Oakmont neighborhood and Trione-Annadel State Park.
Black tells the Santa Rosa Press Democrat that most of the Oakmont area was evacuated earlier in the day due to rampant wildfires.
Officials are asking anyone remaining to leave the area.
Firefighters are battling an onslaught of wildfires in Northern California that has ravaged wineries, rural towns and whole neighborhoods.
The city of Santa Rosa and its 175,000 residents felt much of the damage, with strip malls, business parks, hotels and subdivisions swallowed up by the fire.
