YREKA, Calif. (AP) — Two bodies were found inside a charred vehicle in a driveway in the wildfire zone of a raging California blaze that was among several menacing thousands of homes Monday in the Western U.S., officials said. Hot and gusty weather and lightning storms threatened to boost the danger that the fires will keep growing,
The McKinney Fire in Northern California near the state line with Oregon exploded in size to nearly 87 square miles (225 square kilometers) after erupting Friday in the Klamath National Forest, firefighting officials said. It is California’s largest wildfire of the year so far and officials have not yet determined the cause.
The vehicle and the bodies were found Sunday morning in the driveway of a residence near the remote community of Klamath River, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Nearly 5,000 homes and other structures were threatened and an unknown number of buildings have burned, said Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service.The smoky blaze cast an eerie, orange-brown hue in one neighborhood where a brick chimney stood surrounded by rubble and scorched vehicles on Sunday. Flames torched trees along State Route 96 and raced through hillsides in sight of homes.
Valerie Linfoot’s son, a fire dispatcher, called to tell her their family home of three decades in Klamath River had burned. Linfoot said her husband worked as a U.S. Forest Service firefighter for years and the family did everything they could to prepare their house for a wildfire — including installing a metal roof and trimming trees and tall grasses around the property.
“It was as safe as we could make it, and it was just so dry and so hot and the fire was going so fast,” Linfoot told the Bay Area News Group. She said her neighbors have also lost homes.
“It’s a beautiful place. And from what I’ve seen, it’s just decimated. It’s absolutely destroyed,” she told the news group.
Firefighting crews on the ground were trying to prevent the blaze from moving closer to the town of Yreka, population about 7,500. The blaze was about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) away as of Monday.A second, smaller fire in the region that was sparked by dry lightning Saturday threatened the tiny California community of Seiad Valley.
Freeman said “there has been significant damage and loss along the Highway 96 corridor” that runs parallel to the Klamath River and is one of the few roads in and out of the region.
She added: “But just how much damage is still being assessed.”
Erratic storms were expected to move through Northern California again on Monday with lightning that threatened to spark new fires in bone dry vegetation, forecasters said. A day earlier, thunderstorms caused flash flooding that damaged roads in Death Valley National Park and in mountains east of Los Angeles.
In northwestern Montana, winds picked up Monday afternoon on a fire burning in forested land west of Flathead Lake, forcing fire managers to ground all aircraft and leading the Lake County Sheriff’s Office to start evacuating residents on the northeastern corner of the fire.
The fire was putting up a lot of smoke, creating visibility problems for aircraft, said Sara Rouse, a spokesperson for the fire management team.
