Wildfire destroys 500 structures, almost community levels »Manila News Bulletin

By The Associated Press

In the small community of Keswick in northern California, there is only a handful of houses.

The air is thick the smell of smoke and chemicals. The rubble of people's lives once again brooded after the so-called Carr Fire passed through Shasta County as a freight train.

The flames so devoured the houses that it is hard to tell how much they once stood above the pile of ashes and smoking rubble that linger.

Shyla Campbell and Jason Campbell

Jason Campbell, a firefighter, was at six o'clock fighting a forest fire near the Yosemite Valley when Carr's fire moved into his home and his family.

Shyla Campbell, 32 I am Thursday when she received an official alert to evacuate.

"It's big flames, it goes up the hill, and everyone is outside and we look, then it goes down, and everyone says," Oh that's coming out, " she said, "and I'm like," No, it's coming down the mountain and it's going to go up the next ridge. "

She was right.

The family spent the night In a hotel.When Jason Campbell came back from the fire that he was fighting on Friday, he discovered that his own house had caught fire, with a recreational vehicle and a boat.

The five-year-old house Campbell was part of at least 500 structures that officials These fires also destroyed the fire, which also swept Shasta, the historic town of the gold rush, and reached the houses of Redding, a city ​​of 92,000 inhabitants located about 100 miles south of the Oregon border.Shasta Lake City. "I just have to know where we are going to stay. We are just trying to stay away from the fire. "

Thus, about 37,000 people remain under evacuation orders on Friday." Nearly 5,000 homes in the area were threatened by the 75 square kilometer fire, which is only about 5%.

Thousands of people take refuge in front of the walls of flames that descend from the wooded hills The inhabitants who hastily gathered their belongings described a chaotic and cluttered escape as the embers exploded a mile ahead flames and fire spread across the vast Sacramento River and set fire to Redding subdivisions.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Greg and Terri Hill evacuated their Redding home on Thursday night at age 18 with a little more than their drugs, their photo albums, their clothes and their guns, they would be back in a few days

But when they came back on Friday, there was almost nothing left of them but fine particles of ashes.

The remains were bustling so hard, they could not do anything anymore. "I know it's just stuff, lots of memories, but we're going to make new memories and get new things, everyone is safe."

The Hills fled before they are told, knowing that the danger ran when the current fell and the helicopters began to fly low.

Liz Williams loaded two children in her car, herself locked in an unrestrained traffic with neighbors trying to withdraw from Redding Estates Lake.

She finally jumped on the sidewalk and "reserved."

"I have never experienced anything so terrifying in my life, "she said," I did not know if the fire would just jump behind a bush and grab and suck me. "

The flames moved so fast that firefighters working under conditions of temperature and dryness owed "

The fire, which created at least two fiery tornadoes that toppled trees, shook fire-fighting equipment and broke the windows of trucks, "fell back all the way," says Scott. McLean, a spokesman for Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fighting forest fires.

Two firefighters were killed in the fire, Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke and a bulldozer operator whose name was not immediately released. He was the second bulldozer operator killed in a California fire in less than two weeks.

Firefighters warned that the fire would likely burn more deeply in urban areas before there was any hope of containing it.

Elsewhere in the state, major fires continued to burn outside Yosemite National Park and in the San Jacinto Mountains in east Los Angeles near Palm Springs