Deadly California wildfire kills great-grandmother and two children
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Grieving relatives described the panicked phone calls they received as fires closed in on their California neighbourhood and their desperate two-day search for an elderly woman and her two great-grandhildren, before discovering they died when flames engulfed their home.
The death toll from California’s summer wildfires rose to five at the weekend when fire crews said they had found human remains at a charred home on the outskirts of Redding in the north of the state.
More than 38,000 people remain under evacuation orders from a fire that has destroyed more than 500 buildings and continued to rage unchecked into a seventh day yesterday.
Ed Bledsoe described how he left his home with the family’s only car to run errands on Thursday leaving his wife Melody, 70, and two great-grandchildren – James Roberts, 5, and Emily Roberts, 4 – behind.
He told Capital Public Radio his wife telephoned an hour later.
“She said, ‘You need to come home right now. The fire’s right next to our house,’” he said.
Mr Bledsoe tried to race home but was turned back at roadblocks.
The children were “screaming for their lives,” Jason Decker, the boyfriend of another of the Bledsoes’ granddaughters, told the New York Times. “The kids were saying: ‘Papa, papa, come home. The fire’s at the back door.’”
Then the line went dead.
For two days they searched hospitals and refuges after being told the three had been rescued. But on Saturday, officials said three bodies had been found at what was left of their home.