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LOS ANGELES – A violent forest fire devastated a city north of
California
and forced residents to run for escape, after their advance destroyed hundreds of homes. The flames started yesterday early and quickly burned 3237 hectares. Highways have become tunnels of fire and thick smoke has darkened the sky during the day.
Horrible stories of escape and heroic rescues emerged from Paradise, the most affected city where the community of 27,000 residents was summoned to evacuate, about 240 km north of Sacramento. Witnesses reported seeing homes, supermarkets, businesses, restaurants, schools and a nursing home on fire.
"We were surrounded by fire, we were crossing it on both sides of the highway," said police officer Mark Bass, who lives in Paradise and works in the nearby town of Chico. He evacuated his family and then returned to the fire to help several disabled residents, including a man who was trying to put his prostrate wife safe. "It was just a wall of fire on either side of us, and we could barely see the road in front of us."
Residents claimed to have run away from their homes and found themselves stranded on paralyzed roads as the flames approached, unleashing explosions and destroying utility poles. "Things started to explode," said Gina Oviedo, a resident of Paradise. "People started getting out of their vehicles and running."
Chaos and desperation took hold of many people who abandoned their cars on the edge of the highway and chose to escape on foot carrying children and their pets. Trucks, some with attached trailers, were abandoned on the road while evacuees were fleeing, a police official said. "They were abandoned because the traffic was very painful and delayed for several hours."
In the midst of this situation, a woman gave birth in a traffic jam, according to the journal Enterprise-Record. "It's very chaotic," said officer Ryan Lambert of the California Highway Patrol.
Rescuers used a backhoe to drive abandoned cars out of the Feather River Hospital and evacuate patients as the flames consumed the building, said Butte County Supervisor Doug Teeter.
At Paradise Hospital, more than 60 patients were evacuated to other facilities. Some buildings were burned and damaged, but the main facility, Adventist Health Feather River Hospital, was not touched, said spokeswoman Jill Kinney.
L & # 39; fire
At the same time, the city of Chico, which has 93,000 inhabitants, could be the next target of the fire, which should be swept at night by winds of 56 km / h to the west, said the county fire chief. Butte, Darren Read.
Authorities in Butte County, California, declared the state of emergency because of the mighty forest fire that forced the area to evacuate thousands of people. The emergency declaration was issued after the rapidly advancing flames consumed more than 18,000 hectares in eight hours and could not be controlled.
"The accident is very dangerous, evacuate it if you wish," tweeted Cal Fire, the California loss management agency. The fire, dubbed Camp Fire and at the end of the season, has already destroyed dozens of homes in Butte County, in a state of emergency, and another 15,000 nerve centers are still under threat.
For the moment, fires are intensifying rapidly in Ventura County. According to the county fire department, the Woolsey fire is the one that causes the most concern among firefighters.
AP, DPA and AFP agencies
Photographic edition: Alfredo Sánchez
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