Wireless communication is getting better in the communities hard hit by the Northern California wildfires.
The California Office of Emergency Services said early in the day Wednesday that of the 77 cell towers that were knocked offline since Sunday night, 64 were back in service.
Heidi Flato is a spokeswoman for Verizon. She says part of the effort of restoring service involves bringing in what is known as a COW, an acronym for Cell On Wheels.
"For instance, at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, we've got a COW set up there," Flato says. "We know there are a lot of people between emergency services and displaced residents, we want to make sure they've got good coverage and enough network capacity to keep everyone connected."
The Office of Emergency Services says downtown Napa is another area where service is back up.
AT&T says it's sending similar mobile cell sites to help alleviate the service problems in fire-damaged areas.
Officials say it has been difficult to get to some of the damaged towers because the fires are still burning in those areas.
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