REDDING, Calif. — The death toll from a rapidly growing Northern California wildfire rose to five Saturday after two young children and their great-grandmother who had been unaccounted for were confirmed dead.
‘‘My babies are dead,’’ Sherry Bledsoe said through tears after she and family members met with Shasta County sheriff’s deputies.
Bledsoe’s two children, James Roberts, 5, and Emily Roberts, 4, were stranded with her grandmother Melody Bledsoe, 70, when fire swept through the rural area where they were staying Thursday.
The three were among more than a dozen people reported missing after the furious wind-driven blaze took residents by surprise and leveled several neighborhoods.
Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said he expects to find several of those people alive and just out of touch with loved ones.
Officers have gone to homes of several people who were reported missing and found that cars were gone — a strong indication they fled.
The fire that was ignited Monday in forested hills grew overnight to 127 square miles. It pushed southwest of Redding, about 250 miles north of San Francisco and the largest city in the region with about 92,000 residents, toward tiny communities of Ono, Igo, and Gas Point.
It’s now the largest of more than 20 fires burning in California.
The winds that aided firefighters in keeping the flames from more populated areas were propelling it forward at a frightening rate.
‘‘We’re not getting a break with the weather,’’ said Chris Anthony, a spokesman for Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fighting wildfires. ‘‘It just continues to be really hot, really dry and we continue to get those winds..’’
Two firefighters were killed and the latest tally of 500 destroyed structures was sure to rise.
About 37,000 people are under evacuation orders, 5,000 homes are threatened, and the fire was just 5 percent contained.
Meanwhile, about 120 miles southwest of Redding, two blazes prompted mandatory evacuations in Mendocino County. The two fires, burning 30 miles apart, started Friday and are threatening more than 350 buildings.
The Mendocino County sheriff’s office ordered evacuations for people living in an area of Ukiah north of Highway 175. Residents in neighboring Benmore Valley were also told to leave Saturday.
President Trump issued an emergency declaration for California on Saturday, allowing counties affected by wildfires to receive federal assistance.
Huge fires continued to burn outside Yosemite National Park and in the San Jacinto Mountains east of Los Angeles near Palm Springs.
The wildfires have burned nearly 160,000 acres and destroyed over 500 structures. Yosemite Valley remains closed to visitors and won’t reopen until Friday.
Nationally, 89 active large fires have consumed nearly 930,000 acres in 14 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. So far this year, nearly 37,000 wildfires have burned more than 4.25 million acres.
