Campfire destroys paradise as California fire fights break out in Butte County

The houses were swallowed by the flames.

Cars and trucks have melted on the road.

And thousands of people in a remote northern California town fled to survive as the campfire erupted in Butte County, California, about 90 km north of the capital, Sacramento.

Butte County Sherrif Office m said On Friday, five people were found dead in paradise. The bodies were found in vehicles destroyed by the flames. Additional information on deaths in the fire zone have not been confirmed, said the sheriff's office in a statement, because "the fire is still active and there is many dangers in areas where deaths have been reported. "

Captain Scott McLean of Cal Fire said a few hours ago that the fire destroyed countless structures.

"Almost the entire community of Paradise is destroyed," McLean told the press, according to the Associated Press. "It's that kind of devastation."

Friday morning, near 110 square miles had burned in a fire that was controlled at 5%, with 15,000 structures threatened and many people still subject to mandatory evacuation orders, officials said. According to officials, 52,000 people were evacuated in northern California around the camp's fire.

[The weather and climate behind the inferno that wrecked Paradise]

At a press conference, officials said the fire, which was moving rapidly, had also injured an undetermined number of residents and two firefighters. Acting Governor Gavin Newsom (D), who fulfills this role while Governor Jerry Brown is on the sidelines of the state, said the state of emergency.

Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Emergency Services Bureau, said at a press conference Friday that the scale of the destruction in California was "incredible" and "heartbreaking".

"We know that there have been injuries and that there have been deaths," he said.

Paradise, a popular retirement town populated by 27,000 residents, has been evacuated, along with nearby communities of Magalia, Pulga, Concow, Butte Valley and Butte Creek Canyon. Officials m said On Friday morning, an evacuation order was also issued for the cities of Stirling and Inskip, with the National Weather Service warning that high winds and low humidity could create "severe weather conditions". critical fire ".

At the beginning of the day, 20-year-old Colton Percifield said he woke up at a friend's house in Concow to find smoke outside. The fires soon encroached on the house.

"In half an hour, the whole place was in flames," he said. At 8:20, the house was in flames.

Percifield left in his van for an emergency gathering place outside the city, ending up on a deserted road with the fire in a hell swelling on both sides. A video that he filmed describes the hellish conditions that he described: a thick smoke and heat around the truck as the temperature went up inside, while giant sparks and flames licked the roof above his head in almost black darkness. At one point, a tree branch fell on his car, breaking his windshield and shattering his hood.

Percifield stated that he had left the road a few times in low visibility conditions, but that he had eventually made it to a meadow where residents could gather in case of a bad weather. fire. He added that people had mentioned neighbors in Concow who had not been able to flee their home.

Shary Bernacett, who runs a mobile home park in Paradise with her husband, told USA Today that the couple had urged residents to flee the city.

"My husband did his best to get everyone out," she said. "The whole hill is on fire. May God help us!"

Resident Whitney Vaughn said that while people were leaving their city by car, many were abandoning their vehicles, "running with their babies and their children".

She wrote on Facebook "someone hit our vehicle with theirs, trying to get through," according to CNN. "There were no firefighters in sight. I hope all these people have succeeded.

[Fast-moving wildfires threaten homes in Southern California, forcing thousands to flee]

Meanwhile, hundreds of kilometers south of Ventura County, where locals were still in shock from a large-scale shooting that had killed 12 people, sparked new fires, forcing thousands people to evacuate.

The fire in Butte County began Thursday near Pulga, a community surrounded by the Plumas National Forest, officials said. The first firefighters arrived found 10 to 15 acres in flames. Wind gusts of nearly 50 mph accelerated the growth of the fire.

Officials warned that the situation could change quickly. Cal's fire chief, Darren Read, told reporters at the time that some 1,500 first responders were on the scene or on the road, as well as 300 firefighters, 20 bulldozers, planes and aircraft. other support vehicles.

According to journalist Ryan Lillis of Sacramento Bee, about 60 to 70 people were waiting for an emergency evacuation in a Walgreen's Paradise.

"Fire crews ask buses to take them out" he reported. A hospital, Adventist Health Feather River, was evacuated before the fire. The hospital's parent company could not be contacted for comment.

The escape routes were crowded by people trying to escape the growing fire, reported the Sacramento Bee, and first responders worried about the possibility of escape.

"I can not think of a safe zone yet," Lieutenant Al Smith of the Butte County Sheriff's Office told the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday.

Many have turned to social media to express their distress, showing apocalyptic images of smoky skies and orange neon horizon lines in what is becoming a familiar ritual in California. Others have flooded Twitter with messages about missing family members.

"My mother is stuck with other drivers on Pearson Rd in Paradise, with houses burning nearby," a person wrote on Twitter. "People who leave vehicles and run with children and pets."

The county schools were closed on Friday, as were the roads. Officials warned that the fire could reach the city of Chico, a university town of about 93,000 residents located about six miles from paradise. The university has announced its intention to close Friday "for caution".

In addition, satellite images showed that smoke from the fire was spread westward in the San Francisco Bay Area, thus causing a warning on the local air quality.

The National Weather Service predicted dangerous weather conditions for fires in California due to winds from Santa Ana, which blow from the east and accelerate along the mountainous slopes of north to south California. Red-flag warnings of "critical weather conditions in the event of a fire" were in effect not only for the Sacramento Valley but also for central and southern California. Gusts of 50 mph were expected in many places.

About 23.4 million Californians were under red flag warnings Thursday in early Friday, after which the winds should abate, allowing the responders to improve the conditions to fight the fire.

California has experienced debilitating fires of unprecedented regularity in recent years. In August, the Mendocino complex fire became the largest ever forest fire in the state, burning more than 400,000 acres. The previous record was set less than a year ago in another catastrophic fire that devastated more than 280,000 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. In October 2017, some 21 wildfires burned nearly 25,000 hectares and 7,000 buildings in Sonoma and Napa counties, in the heart of the California wine region, killing 40 people.