MIDDLETOWN, Calif. (AP) – Future rebuilding efforts after the hundreds of millions of dollars in destruction caused by a wildfire burning north of San Francisco will be an opportunity to improve poor, sparsely populated Lake County, California officials said.
“We can and we will make this better. I’ve seen it time and time again, disaster after disaster,” said Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
Building more modern roads and adding sewage systems to areas that don’t have them will be included in recovery plans, officials said.
While plans to rebuild are in many people’s minds, fire crews are still battling the blaze. On Wednesday, another body was found in the rubble in Lake County, bringing the death toll to six from that blaze and another in Northern California – two of the state’s more destructive wildfires in recent memory. Also on Wednesday, authorities said a man’s suicide was involved in the start of a separate fire that destroyed 12 homes south of San Francisco.
The Lake County fire destroyed 1,900 structures, including 1,238 homes, and left 3,000 people homeless, Ghilarducci said. It has charred 118 square miles.