Wild fires race across California, devastate wine country

Devastating wildfires laid waste to miles of land around California's scenic wine country, reducing hundreds of homes and businesses to smoldering ruins and leaving one person feared dead.

Fast-moving infernos raging in parts of drought-ridden northern California have forced thousands to flee over the past several days, state disaster officials said.

Four firefighters have also been injured as the blazes moved at alarming speed across the region, and there were so far unconfirmed reports of one fatality.

"The fires are spreading faster than I have seen in my 30 years," Mark Ghilarducci, the state's emergency services chief, told The Sacramento Bee newspaper.

Over 11,000 firefighters are battling 12 large fires across California.

Two -- the Valley Fire about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of the state capital Sacramento and the Butte Fire about 100 miles to the east -- have been particularly devastating, together destroying 435 homes according to fire officials.

Governor Jerry Brown issued an emergency declaration for Lake and Napa counties -- wine-producing regions north of San Francisco -- due to the massive Valley Fire. Area schools were also closed on Monday.
Among the hardest hit areas is Lake County, named after the picturesque Clear Lake, a mostly agricultural area of pear orchards and vineyards, where communities have names like Spring Valley and Whispering Pines.

Lake County's village of Middletown, about 100 miles north of San Francisco was turned into a ghost town first, having been evacuated as residents fled the fast moving Valley inferno.

The town was then consumed by the blaze, with little remaining other than smoldering brick and stone after the buildings were burned down to their foundations.

Evidence of the deadly conflagration were strewn throughout the area in the aftermath the of the fire's destruction.

Burned out chassis of what once were cars were abandoned on the side of road, while charred trees, still standing, eerily stretched stripped, blackened limbs to the sky.
From a distance, the region's famed rolling foothills glowed red and orange from the fast-moving blaze.

"My heart goes out to all those who lost homes and businesses in the devastating fires in California," the state's senator, Barbara Boxer. said in a tweet.

"Praying for the safety of all."

The recent fires have been fueled by tinder-dry conditions across the western United States, which has been starved for rain for the past several years.

The prolonged dry spell has been exacerbated by record high temperatures, which many environmentalists blame on global warming.