Thousands of firefighters are battling against 15 separate wildfires that have been rapidly spreading across Northern California since erupting on October 8th.
Wildfires sweeping across California’s wine country, mostly in the counties of Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino have claimed over 217,000 acres.
The wildfires have destroyed thousands of buildings, killing at least 41 people. There are still a reported 88 people still missing.
Governor Jerry Brown stated, “This is truly one of the greatest, if not the greatest tragedy that California has ever faced,” lamenting, “The devastation is just unbelievable, is a horror that no one could have imagined.”
As the strong winds die down and fires are being contained in some areas, some people of the 100,000 who were ordered to evacuate have been allowed to return homes— or at least to what is left of them. 40,000 people remain evacuated.
The good news is that firefighters may finally be gaining the upper hand on the fires. The two largest fires are about 60% contained and there is an expected rainfall later this week which will aid the firefighters in their work.
Entire neighborhoods have been incinerated. For some areas, this process may take weeks, but the current top priority is returning people to their homes to restore some level of normalcy.