SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — The Latest on California wildfires (all times local): 8:30 p.m. More people displaced by Northern California wildfires have been told they can go home. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said Monday night that evacuation orders
SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — The Latest on California wildfires (all times local):
8:30 p.m.
More people displaced by Northern California wildfires have been told they can go home.
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said Monday night that evacuation orders have been lifted for two neighborhoods in Santa Rosa, a city of 175,000 people. Many harder hit neighborhoods in the city remain under evacuation orders.
Residents of the wine-country towns of Geyserville and Healdsburg have also been told they can go home.
More than 40 people were killed by the wildfires that swept across the region. Most of the dead were in Sonoma County.
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4:45 p.m.
Officials say all 8,000 people evacuated from homes in Mendocino County have now been allowed to return.
Mendocino County Sheriff Thomas Allman told a news conference Monday it was a turning point for the county now that evacuees have been allowed to either return home or to the remains of their homes.
Tens of thousands of evacuees in other hard-hit counties, including Napa and Sonoma, are still waiting for permission to go back to their communities.
County and state officials reported progress in fighting fires but warned that recovery from the devastation will take years.
Mendocino County Supervisor Rob Brown said that for some people, life will never be the same. He said “you’ll see benefits within years but you’re literally in for decades of recovery.”
More than 40 people were killed by wildfires that swept across Northern California. Eight people died in Mendocino County.
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2:55 p.m.
About 100 people remain unaccounted for in Napa and Sonoma counties.
Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano said Monday there are reports of 88 people missing in the county a week after deadly wildfires started in Northern California’s wine country.
The county received nearly 2,000 reports of people missing, but most of the people have been located. Sonoma County also referred three dozen names of missing to other counties.
Napa County reported 14 people on its unaccounted list.
It was unclear how many people are actually missing because reports have included duplicate names or names of people who were safe but unable to call relatives.
Some people reported as missing also never knew someone had been looking for them.
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2:05 p.m.
State and local officials say they are trying to get people back into their homes, but they cautioned that it could take days and even weeks for neighborhoods hard hit by Northern California wildfires.
Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano said it will take time to ensure that homes in burned areas are safe and free of bodies.
Giordano says there are reports of 88 people still missing in Sonoma County. The county received nearly 2,000 reports of people missing, and most of them have been located.
He says he expects to find some of the missing in homes burned down.
The number of evacuated people has dropped from 100,000 on Saturday to 40,000 Monday morning.
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12:55 p.m.
Edgy 1960s comedian-turned-Sonoma Valley winemaker Tommy Smothers is in a new role as a temporary refugee with a cranky cat because of the Northern California wildfires.
Smothers, who is 80, dropped by an open deli in the partially evacuated town of Sonoma to buy three cans of cat food. He has owned vineyards above the nearby wine town of Kenwood for four decades.
Like tens of thousands of others, Smothers left his home last week when the deadliest group of fires in state history threatened.
He says he agonized over his decision to leave his neighborhood and now thinks he should have stayed.
But Smothers says the fires taught him that at his age, he doesn’t need most of his possessions.
Smothers was staying at a friend’s home and said he hoped the food would satisfy his “whining” cat.
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12:35 p.m.
A major campground used by evacuees fleeing Northern California wildfires is closing as fire threats decrease and authorities allow more people to go home.
Sonoma Raceway opened its RV lot Oct. 10 and by Friday, more than 100 RVs and campers had set up by a highway under open skies. The center had tables overloaded with donated food, water, clothes and toys for kids.
Diana Brennan, spokeswoman for Sonoma Raceway, said the campground was never intended to serve as long-term shelter.
She said Monday that a handful of RVs remained before the 6 p.m. deadline.
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12:20 p.m.
In the historic main square of the wine and tourist town of Sonoma, townspeople have rigged a statue of the town’s 19th century founder with a face mask and handmade signs thanking firefighters.
The statue of Gen. Mariano Vallejo was draped with a dozen signs including one that read, “Thank you firefighters. Bless you!!! For saving our town.”
Firefighters spent days digging firebreaks to keep flames from reaching the city’s historic central plaza built centuries ago when the area was under Spanish rule.
The grassy square was empty Monday of picnickers, children and tourists who normally fill it.
The town of 11,000 people was still hampered by power outages, evacuation orders and advisories, and active fires in the ridges near town.
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10:25 a.m.
Tens of thousands of people have been allowed to return to their homes as the threat eases from the devastating California wildfires.
Officials said Monday the number of evacuees has gone from a high of 100,000 on Saturday to 40,000 Monday.
Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, expects more evacuation orders will be lifted later in the day as firefighters gain on the fires that have killed a firefighting truck driver and 40 other people while destroying thousands of homes.
Some people will return to untouched homes, while others will return to destruction.
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8:45 a.m.
California officials say a firefighting truck driver has died after the water transport truck he was driving rolled over near one of the wildfires that has devastated areas in and near Northern California’s wine country.
California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection says the trucker who was contracted to transport water was the first firefighting worker to die because of the wildfires that have killed 40 others and destroyed thousands of homes.
The trucker died early Monday and was not identified.
Department spokesman Daniel Berlant says officials are investigating the cause of the crash that happened in the tiny Napa Valley community of Oakville.
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6:15 a.m.
Rain forecast for Northern California and lighter winds could help firefighters battling wildfires that have burned for more than a week.
National Weather Service meteorologist Charles Bell tells the San Francisco Chronicle that temperatures in hard hit areas will remain hot and dry for now but rain is on the way to the region where more than 40 people have died.
Bell says a storm now centered in the Gulf of Alaska should arrive in the area by Thursday and continue into Friday.
About two-tenths of an inch (0.5 centimeters) of rain is expected to fall.
Bell says that could help slow the spread of the fires.
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3:00 a.m.
Thousands of evacuees got the all-clear to return their homes after fire crews gained ground against devastating California wildfires.
The danger from the deadliest, most destructive cluster of blazes in California history was far from over.
But the smoky skies started to clear in some places.
People were being allowed to go back home in areas no longer in harm’s way. The number of those under evacuation orders fell from nearly 100,000 down to 75,000.
Those who were allowed back into gutted neighborhoods returned to assess the damage and see if anything was salvageable.
Nearly 11,000 firefighters were still battling 15 fires burning across a 100-mile swath of the state.
