The Carr Fire has claimed a second fatality. Officials announced that a City of Redding firefighter was killed last night. A bulldozer operator was killed yesterday.
In a sign of just how out of control the inferno remains, CalFire moments ago said nearly 5,000 structures are now under threat. In an assessment since dawn, officials said 65 structures have been utterly destroyed, another 55 damaged.
CalFire spokesman Scott McLean said the fire has jumped the Sacramento River.
Fear and panic gripped Redding last night as erratic winds from the west turned a major wildfire, licking at the heels of a reservoir into an inferno threatening to consume a city.
Electricity service was cut to parts of the city and rotating blackouts extended elsewhere. Evacuees riding out the fire storm at Shasta High School found themselves evacuated to elsewhere as the flames drew close.
Residents in the western part of Redding who hadn't been under evacuation orders were caught off guard and had to flee with little notice, causing miles-long traffic jams as flames turned the skies orange.
McLean said the fast changing conditions overnight appeared even more dangerous than one of last year’s deadly megafires.
Firefighters tried in vain to build containment around the blaze yesterday but flames kept jumping their lines, McLean said.
Mike Mangas, a spokesman at Mercy Medical Center, said the hospital was evacuating five babies in its Neonatal Intensive Care unit, which cares for premature newborns, and taking them to medical facilities outside of the area.
He said the hospital was preparing high-risk patients to be evacuated but there were no immediate plans to do so.
He said several burn patients were admitted to the emergency room but that most were being treated and released.
The fire has more than doubled in size over the last 24 hours, with CalFire this morning estimating its size at 44,450 acres. Containment is estimated at 3 percent.
Officials said that their mission changed from structure protection, to getting people out of the way.
McLean said that residents should take any advanced notice to evacuate that they receive seriously.