(Adds report of possible third fatality)
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES, June 25 (Reuters) - A massive wildfire burning
out of control in the foothills of central California has left
at least 150 homes in ruins and damaged another 75, officials
said on Saturday, warning that more residents may be forced to
flee the advancing flames.
The so-called Erskine fire, which broke out on Thursday some
40 miles (64 km) northeast of Bakersfield in Kern County, has
already claimed at least two lives, sent three firefighters to
the hospital and forced thousands of people to evacuate their
homes.
More than 1,100 firefighters have been deployed to battle
the blaze, which has blackened some 35,700 acres and was zero
percent contained as of Saturday afternoon. California Governor
Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency for Kern County.
"It is a vicious wildfire. We are going to be committed to
this for some time," Captain Tyler Townsend of the Kern County
Fire Department told CNN. "A lot of communities are still in
danger."
Crews were working in steep, rugged terrain, fighting flames
that were fueled by hot, dry weather and brush, grass and
chaparral left bone dry by California's devastating five-year
drought.
Officials have not identified the two people killed in the
huge conflagration, one of the worst in an already intense fire
season in California.
The Los Angeles Times reported that investigators had found
what they believed to be the remains of a third victim at a
mobile home in the community of South Lake.
"We are treating it like a crime scene. It appears to be
one set of human remains, pretty badly burned," Kern County
Sheriff's spokesman Ray Pruitt told the paper.
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told a Friday evening
press conference that more fatalities could be discovered once
authorities are able to search burned-out neighborhoods with
cadaver dogs.
Authorities say the cause of the fire remains unknown.
"My heart goes out to everyone here who has lost a home and
my heart goes out to the family that perished yesterday in the
fire," Sergeant Henry Bravo of the sheriff's office told
evacuees at a community meeting on Saturday.
On Friday, authorities warned the more than 3,000 residents
of the community of Lake Isabella on the shore of a reservoir to
be prepared to evacuate.
Southeast of Lake Isabella, dozens of burned-out homes and
car frames were left behind in a neighborhood reduced to a field
of mangled metal and collapsed roofs.
To the south, firefighters were struggling to manage the
so-called San Gabriel Complex fire in the foothills of Los
Angeles County. There were two fires that started on Friday and
cover a combined 5,285 acres, fire officials said. Containment
was at nearly 50 percent for both blazes.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Curtis Skinner
in San Francisco and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by
David Gregorio and Tom Brown)
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