Sharjah24 – Reuters: Two bodies were found inside a burned-out car in the path of a huge northern California forest fire raging near the Oregon border, authorities said on Monday, as crews battling the blaze for a fourth day took advantage of rainfall in the area.
Since erupting on Friday, the fast-moving McKinney Fire has forced some 2,000 residents to flee while destroying homes and critical infrastructure, mostly in Siskiyou County, home to the Klamath National Forest, according to a statement from Governor Gavin Newsom on Sunday.
Authorities have yet to quantify the extent of property losses, but the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said in an update posted on Monday that more than 4,900 homes were threatened by flames.
Already the largest blaze in California this year, the fire has charred 55,493 acres (22,457 hectares) of drought-stressed timber and remained at 0% containment, Cal Fire reported.
Two smaller wildfires in the same county that scorched just over 2,700 acres combined as of Monday and had chased at least 200 residents from their homes, Cal Fire said.
The two bodies from the McKinney fire were found on Sunday in a car parked in a residential driveway west of the community of Klamath River, the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office said in a statement on Monday. The agency said it would have no further information until the next of kin were notified.
Forensic investigators dressed in white protective suits sifted through debris from the vehicle and collected remains for identification. A sheriff's spokesperson on the scene said skid marks were found on the driveway.
"It appears that they were trying to flee the fire and likely couldn't see to get out," the spokesperson said, adding that the vehicle appeared to have rammed into the driveway gate and "fell off the embankment."
Elsewhere along a highway running through the fire zone, an Oregon-based volunteer search-and-rescue team with cadaver dogs combed the grounds of other incinerated properties for signs of possible additional victims.
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