Couple who died in a California wildfire were preparing to evacuate when they received 'erroneous information' that the blaze was 51% contained, leading them to change their minds

A California couple who died in the North Complex Fire were preparing to evacuate the area when they changed their minds based on 'erroneous information' that the blaze was 51 per cent contained. 

Philip Ruble, 68, was found dead inside his charred Toyota pickup at the Berry Creek home he shared with Millicent Catarncuic, 77, who was found dead in a nearby embankment, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said Tuesday during a press conference. 

'After speaking to family members, it is believed the pair was aware of the fire in the area,' Honea said.

'They had packed their belongings in preparation to evacuate but later decided not to evacuate based on erroneous information that the fire was 51 per cent contained.' 

Philip Ruble , 68, and Millicent Catarncuic , 77, who both died in a California wildfire were preparing to evacuate when they changed their based on 'erroneous information'

Ruble was found dead inside his charred Toyota pickup at the Berry Creek home he shared with Catarncuic who was found dead in a nearby embankment, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said Tuesday during a press conference

The Berry Creek area has been nearly decimated by the North Complex Fire. 

Local authorities issued evacuation orders for the area beginning the afternoon of September 8. 

Evacuation information has been posted on social media sites and on the fire information line, transmitted via ham radio, according to CNN. 

According to a Butte County spokeswoman, deputies were in the area with evacuation sirens and went door to door where possible. 

It's unclear where the couple retrieved the inaccurate information because containment information is not usually shared with evacuation orders. 

Dozens of fires have burned some 4.5 million acres of tinder-dry brush, grass and woodlands in Oregon, California and Washington state since August, ravaging several small towns, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 34 people.

Fifteen people have been killed in the North Complex Fire alone, while 13 others are still missing. 

The North Complex Fire is the eighth largest in California history. It has charred more than 273,000 acres and destroyed nearly 800 structures. 

The Berry Creek area (a home pictured) has been nearly decimated by the North Complex Fire

Cal Fire firefighters survey a property that was destroyed by the blaze in Berry Creek 

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said 16,600 firefighters were still battling 25 major fires after achieving full containment around the perimeter of other large blazes.

Firefighters in the San Gabriel Mountains just north of Los Angeles waged an all-out campaign to save the famed Mount Wilson Observatory and an adjacent complex of broadcast transmission towers from flames that crept near the site.

Meanwhile, in Oregon, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has obligated more than $1.2million in mission assignments to bring relief to the state and has deployed five urban search and rescue teams to the wildfire-torn region, the agency said in a statement on Wednesday.

Search teams scoured incinerated homes for the missing as firefighters kept up their exhausting battle.

The wildfires, which officials and scientists have described as unprecedented in scope and ferocity, have filled the region's skies with smoke and soot, compounding a public health crisis already posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Scientists in Europe tracked the smoke as it bore down on the continent, underscoring the magnitude of the disaster.

The European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service is monitoring the scale and intensity of the fires and the transport of the resultant smoke across the United States and beyond.

'The fact that these fires are emitting so much pollution into the atmosphere that we can still see thick smoke over 8,000 kilometers away reflects just how devastating they have been in their magnitude and duration,' CAMS Senior Scientist Mark Parrington said in a statement.

CAMS said it uses satellite observations of aerosols, carbon monoxide and other constituents of smoke to monitor and forecast its movement through the atmosphere.

Eight deaths have been confirmed during the past week in Oregon, which became the latest and most concentrated hot spot in a larger summer outbreak of fires across the entire western US. The Pacific Northwest was hardest hit.

The fires roared to life in California in mid-August, and erupted across Oregon and Washington around Labor Day last week, many of them sparked by catastrophic lightning storms and stoked by record-breaking heat waves and bouts of howling winds.

Weather conditions improved early this week, enabling firefighters to begin to make headway in efforts to contain and tamp down the blazes.