Wildfires bring devastation and evacuations to California and Rockies
Emergency services are battling raging wildfires across Southern California as communities begin to pick up the pieces after homes were destroyed.
Emergency services are battling raging wildfires across Southern California as communities begin to pick up the pieces after homes were destroyed.
For areas such as Cohasset, in Butte County, which has been ravaged by the enormous Park Fire, evacuation orders have been lifted but now the slow process of recovery has begun.
"This community's going to need a lot of support, a lot of aid. It’s a rural community, it’s not a city or a town, there’s no governmental structure here," Dan Collins, public information officer for Cal Fire said Tuesday.
Andrea Blaylock sifts through the charred remains of her home that was destroyed in the Park Fire near Forest Ranch, Calif., on Tuesday.Nic Coury / AP"There are people that live here with little to no means and they just lost everything they own or everything they ever had," he said, adding that a local residents' association was asking for donations to help rebuild.The Park Fire, the fifth-largest in California’s history, has so far burned through more than 380,000 acres, or 600 square miles, across four counties and is just 18% contained, California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said late Tuesday.
The fire's threat is far from over, as it continued to burn through inaccessible terrain full of dense vegetation. "That’s going to be a continued challenge for us moving forward over the next couple of days," said Mark Brunton, an operations section chief with Cal Fire.The recently named Nixon Fire has burned through 4,500 acres or 7 square miles and was 0% contained on Tuesday night.
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