The body of another victim of a massive wildfire burning in Shasta County was recovered Sunday, bringing the total number of fatalities to six, including two firefighters, authorities said. The identity of the victim or any other details about how the person died were not immediately available, officials said during an afternoon news conference in Redding. The discovery came one day after a family member confirmed the deaths of a 70-year-old woman and her two great-grandchildren. Authorities said half a dozen other people are still reported missing. With the unyielding temperatures over 100 degrees and bone-dry vegetation, authorities said there was no end in sight to the Carr fire. Between Friday night and Saturday morning, the fire doubled in size to more than 80,000 acres, the largest of 17 fires burning across the state. Advertisement As of Sunday, the blaze had burned more than 89,000 acres and is now burning in a northwest direction away from homes. The fire is only 5% contained but authorities said Sunday they are optimistic that figure will rise by nightfall. Erratic winds and hot, dry conditions continue to hamper firefighting efforts. A red flag warning and heat advisory will remain in effect through Monday. Tom Dang, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office, said that over the next few days humidity levels will fall to around 10% or 15%, and wind gusts of up to 20 mph are still expected in the afternoons and evenings. The lone source of minor relief is the temperature, which is expected to reach an afternoon and evening high of about 100 degrees, Dang said. “This fire has burned so intensely, an incredible amount of smoke has been put into the air, and that’s helping to hold down temperatures a little bit,” he said. “If it weren’t for the smoke, we would be expecting temperatures upwards of 105 to 110.” Daniel Potter, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said firefighters Sunday were focusing on protecting structures on the eastern and southeastern edge of the fire, which still poses some threat to the communities of Redding and Shasta Lake. He said hand crews — aided by bulldozers — were working furiously to establish more fire lines before winds start picking up from the east later in the afternoon. The winds so far have not been as bad as in previous days, he said, noting that such breaks in the weather help. “If there’s limited winds it gives us the chance to get on the fire’s edge and try to stop it,” Potter said. Advertisement Hand crews have been doing most of the firefighting because heavy smoke has made visibility a challenge for aircraft, he said. The blaze in Shasta County was one of 17 major wildfires burning across California on Sunday, consuming a combined 200,000 acres, said Jonathan Cox, battalion chief and information officer with Cal Fire. “We’ve had 17 fires before,” Cox said. “But these are impacting communities — and they’re large fires, not small.” With so many fires burning near populated areas, “resources are obviously stretched thin,” he said. Advertisement By Sunday afternoon, about 12,000 firefighters from within the state had responded. Another 800 personnel — soldiers and helicopter crews — had been deployed by the California National Guard. And 150 fire engines were on the way from other parts of the country, Cox said. “There’s a finite number of [firefighting] resources in California, and obviously we’re employing them at the highest-priority incidents where the threat to lives and structures is the highest,” Cox said. On Twitter, officials with the state’s Office of Emergency Services said California will be receiving help from crews from at least a dozen other states, including Florida and New Jersey. The deaths of Melody Bledsoe, 70, and her great-grandchildren, Emily Roberts, 5, and James Roberts, 4, were announced Saturday by family members. The three were killed when their Redding home burned Thursday night. Advertisement Bledsoe’s granddaughter Amanda Woodley confirmed the news about their deaths Saturday in a public Facebook post written just after she left the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office. Woodley said Bledsoe did everything she could to save the children. “She was hovered over them both with a wet blanket,” she wrote. “My heart is crushed,” she said. “I can’t believe this is real. I just keep seeing all of their beautiful faces.” RELATED: Redding was scorched by a fire so strong it created its own weather system » Advertisement Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said no bodies had been found yet, but his investigators are “overwhelmingly sure that there are decedents at the scene.” He said access to the home has been difficult as the walls collapsed during the fire. The fire, started Monday by a vehicle mechanical failure on California 299, previously claimed the lives of Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke and bulldozer operator Don Ray Smith. In addition to the human cost, at least 500 homes and other structures have succumbed to flames, authorities said. Sam White’s home of 30 years was destroyed in the fire. But seeing the fire’s destruction put his loss into perspective. Advertisement (Los Angeles Times) “Everything we had there was nice, but it was stuff,” White, 74, said from Shasta Lake, where he is sheltering with family. “We have our lives. That’s all that counts.” Early Thursday morning, 16-year-old Hannalora Lewis of Redding was awakened by her mother. Authorities had ordered them to evacuate. The teenager grabbed an outfit, the new pair of sneakers she bought while back-to-school shopping, her camera and her phone. As she bent down to grab her favorite blanket, her eyes swept over a box filled with mementos — ticket stubs from her favorite movies, rusty nails from the old railroad track she visited in Santa Cruz, rocks, trinkets and her old diaries. For a split second, she contemplated taking it, but she thought it would occupy too much room in the car. Her parents wrangled the dogs, grabbed photos and computers, and almost left her brother’s diabetes medicine. Advertisement<doc-sep>A sixth person has died in the Carr Fire in Northern California, the authorities said on Sunday, as officials hinted they could be nearing a turning point in fighting the vast and erratic wildfire that has been burning for nearly a week. Tom Bosenko, the Shasta County sheriff, said at a news conference on Sunday that the latest victim was found after the fire consumed the person’s home. He did not identify the victim or say where in the region the death had happened. Seven people were still reported missing, he said. The Carr Fire is among the largest and most vicious fires currently ravaging California, but it isn’t the only one taxing the state during its expanding wildfire season. A firefighter died on Sunday while battling the Ferguson Fire, which is near Yosemite National Park and has led to evacuations there. And a separate blaze also forced evacuations northwest of Sacramento on Sunday.<doc-sep>RELATED WILDFIRE STORIES & VIDEOS: REDDING, Calif. (KGO) -- A seventh death has been reported in the battle against the Carr Fire . PG&E says a crew member was doing restoration work in Shasta County when a vehicle accident occurred.The victim has been identified as Jairus Ayeta, who was in his 20s, and worked as an apprentice lineman for PG&E. "Safety of our employees and customers is PG&E's top priority. Our thoughts and prayers are with our fallen team member, their family, and our extended team. We are working with law enforcement to investigate the circumstances of the incident," as PG&E spokesperson said.This comes as President Trump approves a major disaster declaration The Carr Fire has destroyed more than 1,000 homes in and around Redding. The massive wildfire has grown to 154,524 acres and is 41 percent contained.<doc-sep>“You get as much as you can, you get out with your life, but your home is so much a part of you that you can’t replace,” she said. “It’s material, but we have nothing. We have our lives and family and friends, but we just feel lost.”<doc-sep>
The Carr Fire, which blazed into the northern California town of Redding Thursday, has grown even larger and deadlier over the weekend, offering a fiery vision of California's future. "This is climate change, for real and in real time. We were warned that the atmospheric buildup of man-made greenhouse gas would eventually be an existential threat," The Sacramento Bee wrote in an editorial about the fire Friday. The fire, which doubled in size Saturday and is only 5 percent contained, has burned 89,194 acres since it sparked a week ago and has lead to six deaths, CNN reported Monday. Those fatalities included 70-year-old Melody Bledsoe and her great-grandchildren Emily and James Roberts. The three had been declared missing when their home went up in flames Thursday, and their deaths were confirmed Saturday. "With a heavy heart we are sad to inform you all that Mel and the great-grandbabies were confirmed to be in the home," surviving family members wrote on a GoFundMe page, as reported by CNN. Another civilian was also found dead in a house and two people died fighting the fire: Redding fire department Jeremy Stoke and an unnamed bulldozer operator whose death was also reported by EcoWatch Friday. "This fire is scary to us. This is something we haven't seen before in the city," Redding Police Chief Roger Moore told reporters Friday, according to CNN. The fire has burned 517 structures and is being fought by 3,000 firefighters, CNN reported. It has forced 38,000 to evacuate and President Donald Trump has pledged federal aid to affected counties, BBC News reported. One factor that makes the Carr Fire particularly dangerous is the way that the flames are interacting with gail-force winds. "This fire was whipped up into a whirlwind of activity" Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott told BBC News, "Uprooting trees, moving vehicles, moving parts of roadways." These "firenado" conditions are similar to the ones that made last year's October wildfires in the northern Bay Area so deadly, The Sacramento Bee reported Friday. Both fires were spurred on by high temperatures, high winds and dry vegetation. But while last year's fires were driven by winds of 60 miles per hour, the Carr Fire is driven by winds of 10 to 30 miles per hour, and the fire itself is creating its own stronger winds. "These fire-induced winds were very strong and unpredictable and drove this fire from dry brush and trees into urban areas," University of Los Angeles climate scientist Daniel Swain told The Sacramento Bee. The dry vegetation is one reason why the 2018 California wildfire season has seen the most acreage burnt by July 9 in ten years, The Mercury News reported. Dry vegetation is so plentiful because of all the plants killed by the 2012 to 2017 drought, as well as the fact that the winter of 2017-2018 was drier than normal. "We are going to be dealing with the impacts of that drought for many years," Cal Fire Deputy Chief Scott McLean told The Mercury News. Fire season, which used to begin in October, is also getting earlier and earlier because of global warming, The Sacramento Bee reported. "We have these long, hot, dry summers that are getting progressively drier," Swain told The Sacramento Bee. "We're not at the end of summer yet." In Friday's editorial, The Sacramento Bee urged the state to plan for this new normal by improving preparedness and evacuation warning systems, and by taking into account the way that fires are likely to exacerbate the state's housing shortage. "California must plan now for these and other aspects of global warming, as more of the state becomes too hot, too dry, or too fire- or flood-prone to safely live in, and as more of the world braces for the era of climate refugees," the paper advised.