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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2017
Wildfires ravage Northern California
By JEFF CHIU
and ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Associated Press
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — An
onslaught of wildfires across a wide
swath of Northern California broke
out almost simultaneously then grew
exponentially, swallowing up proper-
ties from wineries to trailer parks and
tearing through both tiny rural towns
and urban subdivisions.
Authorities said that at least 11 peo-
ple are dead, with 100 injured, and as
many as 1,500 homes and businesses
have been destroyed. All three figures
were expected to surge in the coming
days as more information is reported.
A new blaze is threatening homes
near the Oakmont area of Santa Rosa,
a city already battling unforgiving
wildfires.
Taken as a group, the fires are
already among the deadliest in Cali-
fornia history.
Residents who gathered at emer-
gency shelters and grocery stores said
they were shocked by the speed and
ferocity of the flames. They recalled
all the possessions they had left behind
and were lost.
“All that good stuff, I’m never
going to see it again,” said Jeff Okrep-
kie, who fled his neighborhood in
Santa Rosa knowing it was probably
the last time he would see his home of
the past five years standing.
His worst fears were confirmed
Monday, when a friend sent him a
photo of what was left: a smoldering
heap of burnt metal and debris.
Some of the largest of the 14 blazes
burning over a 200-mile region were
in Napa and Sonoma counties, home
to dozens of wineries that attract tour-
ists from around the world. They sent
smoke as far south as San Francisco,
about 60 miles away.
Sonoma County said it has received
more than 100 missing-person reports
as family and friends scramble to
locate loved ones.
The reports have come via calls
to a hotline the county set up for the
missing, according to Scott Alonso,
communications director for Sonoma
County.
It’s possible that many or most
of the missing are safe but simply
can’t be reached because of the wide-
spread loss of cell service and other
communications.
Much of the damage was in Santa
Rosa, a far larger and more devel-
oped city than usually finds itself at
the mercy of a wildfire. The city is
home to 175,000 residents, including
both the wine-country wealthy and the
working class.
AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
Michael Pond, left, looks through ashes as his wife Kristine, center, gets a hug from Zack Thurston, their
daughter’s boyfriend, while they search the remains of their home destroyed by fires in Santa Rosa, Calif.
AP Photo/Ben Margot
Fire burns from an open gas valve near the pool area
at the Journey’s End trailer park in Santa Rosa, Ca-
lif., after a wildfire destroyed nearly all of the rough-
ly 160 units in the park for residents over age 55.
The flames were unforgiving to
both groups. Hundreds of homes of
all sizes were leveled by flames so hot
they melted the glass off of cars and
turned aluminum wheels into liquid.
Former San Francisco Giants
pitcher Noah Lowry, who now runs an
outdoor sporting goods store in Santa
Rosa, was forced to flee in minutes
along with his wife, two daughters,
and a son just over 2 weeks old.
“I can’t shake hearing people
scream in terror as the flames barreled
down on us,” Lowry said.
His family and another evacuat-
ing with them tried to take U.S. 101
to evacuate but found it blocked by
AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
Smoke and flames from fire at the Hilton Sonoma
Wine Country hotel in Santa Rosa, Calif.
flames, and had to take country roads
to get to the family friends who took
them in.
A 90-mile stretch of the highway is
framed by the flames and a major con-
cern overnight, said Brad Alexander, a
spokesman for the California Office of
Emergency Services.
Highway 12, which winds through
the heart of wine country, was also
rendered unusable by the flames.
“Sonoma and Napa counties have
been hit very hard,” Alexander said.
The ferocity of the flames forced
authorities to focus primarily on get-
ting people out safely, even if it meant
abandoning structures to the fire.
Firefighters rushed to a state
home for the severely disabled when
flames reached one side of the cen-
ter’s sprawling campus in the historic
Sonoma County town of Glen Ellen.
Crews got the more than 200 peo-
ple from the threatened buildings,
one firefighter said, as flames closed
within a few dozen feet.
Fires from ruptured gas lines dot-
ted the smoky landscapes of black-
ened Santa Rosa hillsides. Fire trucks
raced by smoldering roadside land-
scaping in search of higher priorities.
The flames were fickle in some
corners of the city. One hillside home
remained unscathed while a dozen
surrounding it were destroyed.
Kim Hoe, a 33-year-old tech
worker from Penang, Malaysia, was
staying at the Hilton Sonoma Wine
Country, which was gutted by flames.
He said the power went out around 1
a.m., and he and his colleagues started
packing up when someone knocked
on the door and told them to run.
“We just had to run and run. It
was full of smoke. We could barely
breathe,” Hoe said.
The large majority of the injured
were treated for smoke inhalation,
according to St. Joseph Health, which
operates hospitals in the Santa Rosa
area. Two were in critical condition
and one was in serious condition. The
number of injured is expected to climb
as information comes in for all the
other areas affected by the firestorm
consuming the state.
Flames began coming over a ridge
shortly after 11 p.m. Monday in an
area bordering Oakmont and Tri-
one-Annadel State Park, Santa Rosa
Police Sgt. Summer Black said. Most
of the Oakmont area was evacuated
earlier in the day.
October has generally been the
most destructive time of year for Cal-
ifornia wildfires. What was unusual
Sunday, however, was to have so
many fires take off at the same time.
Other than the windy conditions
that helped drive them all, there was
no known connection between the
fires, and no cause has been released
for any of them.
But the conditions late Monday
and early Tuesday were calmer than
they were 24 hours earlier, bringing
hopes of progress against the flames.
Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state
of emergency for the fire areas, and
asked the federal government to do
the same. Vice President Mike Pence,
who is visiting California, said at an
event near Sacramento that the federal
government stands with California as
it takes on the blazes, but he made no
specific promises.
To the south in Orange County,
more than 5,000 homes were evacu-
ated because of a fire in the Anaheim
area. The blaze had grown to nearly 12
square miles as of early Tuesday.
Anaheim police Sgt. Daron Wyatt
said evacuations were not likely to be
lifted Tuesday.
“The problem right now is that
we’re strapped for resources in the
state of California,” Wyatt said. “We
have eight major fires going in North-
ern California and this fire going as
well, and potential for more fires,
especially with the weather pattern.”
The fire has destroyed at least 24
structures.
Prison: ‘It has never made sense to warehouse this population’
Continued from Page 1A
“We know that addiction
and mental illness are the pri-
mary contributors to many
drug and property crimes,”
said Andy Ko, executive
director of Partnership for
Safety and Justice.
Investing in drug abuse
treatment, mental health care
and other supportive services
that address the underlying
drivers of crime is the best
THE DAILY
ASTORIAN
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way to improve public safety,
Ko said.
“It has never made sense
to warehouse this population
in expensive prison cells that
cause more harm by separat-
ing them from their children
and communities,” he said.
Tim Colahan, executive
director of the Oregon Dis-
trict Attorneys Association,
said the changes need “to be
judged by the impact on the
rates of crime and recidivism.”
“Safety should not be com-
promised for savings,” he
said.
Colahan, a former Harney
County district attorney, said
the state has long prioritized
prison for the most violent
criminals, and a small per-
centage of inmates are repeat
property offenders.
“As a result, the pop-
ulation affected by the
legislative changes in 2017
are virtually all high-risk
individuals,’ he said.
The Oregon Corrections
Population Forecast projects
the number of women inmates
will drop by 8 percent between
this year and September 2027.
Just a year ago, the Depart-
ment of Corrections requested
money to open the second
women’s prison in Salem
because of chronic over-
crowding at the state’s only
existing women’s prison, Cof-
fee Creek Correctional Facil-
ity in Wilsonville. The Oct. 1
report puts plans for the sec-
ond facility on indefinite hold.
The semiannual prison
forecast gives state econo-
mists’ projections for the pop-
ulation supervised by the state
Department of Corrections.
The information helps that
agency and the Oregon Crim-
inal Justice Commission to
plan budgets and prison beds.
The semiannual report
projects an overall 1 percent
SCHEDULE
A - Charter Astoria/ Seaside - L - Charter Long Beach
decrease in the existing prison
population over the next
decade, even as the state’s
overall population is pro-
jected to grow by 12 percent.
In contrast to women prison-
ers, the male prison popula-
tion is still projected to grow
slightly, by 0.7 percent, in the
next decade.
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration between EO
Media Group and Pamplin
Media Group.
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