Southern California: Fire Burns Mobile Homes and Mansions in Malibu | American News

By JONATHAN J. COOPER and ANDREW DALTON, Associated Press

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) – Two people were found dead and many homes, from famous Malibu homes to mobile homes of seniors in the suburbs, were burned in two forest fires that sprawled on more than 100 square miles of southern California, authorities said Saturday.

The two bodies were found in a sparsely populated stretch of Mulholland Highway in Malibu, but the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Chief, John Benedict, gave no further details. This brings to 11 the number of people killed in the forest fires in the state in recent days, with nine found dead in a forest fire in northern California.

Firefighters have saved thousands of homes while they were working in "extreme and difficult fire conditions that they've never seen in their lives," said the Fire Chief. from Los Angeles County, Daryl Osby.

The bad conditions of Friday night gave way to calm Saturday, while the winds were reduced to the breeze.

Firefighters took advantage of this lull to try to control the powerful fire that had reached 282 square kilometers (109 square miles) and understand the extent of the damage in the first two days.

Osby said that the losses in the houses were "important" but did not specify how many people had burned. The authorities said earlier that 150 houses had been destroyed and their number would increase. Some 250,000 houses are awaiting evacuation in the region.

A fire burned in coastal locations as luxurious as Malibu, where Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian West, Guillermo del Toro and Martin Sheen were among the people who had been forced to leave their homes due to a lack of control. evacuation throughout the city.

But the flames also burned inland and canyons dotted with modest homes, right up to the corner of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, and spread to suburbs like Thousand Oaks, a city of 130,000 people who saw 12 people killed in a mass shot in a country music bar.

Forest fires have raged on both sides of the city, still in mourning, where three quarters of the population are under the command of the evacuation requested by the authorities.

"We have had a lot of tragedies in our community," said Linda Parks, supervisor of Ventura County, whose district includes Thousand Oaks. "We do not want anymore, we do not want lives lost."

The locals could not believe that their city, which was little known outside California a week ago, could suddenly be trapped in two simultaneous horrors.

"It's like 'welcome to hell'," said Cynthia Ball in front of a teenage center serving the evacuees. "I do not even know what to say, it's like we're all walking in a kind of trance."

On the outskirts of Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park, in a mobile home for the elderly, the fire broke out so quickly that residents did not have time to collect drugs and documents . Firefighters transported people from their homes and put them in empty seats in their neighbors' cars, said Carol Napoli, 74.

Napoli left with her friend, the son of this friend and her mother, who is 90 years old and had to leave her oxygen tank.

"We went through flames to get out and they brought us in as a caravan," Napoli said. "My girlfriend was driving in. She said:" I do not know if I can do that … "His son said:" Mom, you have to do it, you must cross the flames. "

Ben Watkins also went through flames, but he tried to go home and not leave him.

He was traveling from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles when the fire stopped the traffic and he decided to wait on a beach in Malibu, watching the start of the fire.

Finally, he decided to run, jumping into his vehicle and returning home through the flames that passed the Pacific Coast Highway.

"It's the mode of survival," Watkins said. "You think about how you have to go home at all costs."

The region that burns in southern California is experiencing a severe drought, US government analysts said. Last year, California emerged from a five-year state-wide drought, but the month of 2018 was very dry, pushing some parts of the country to a standstill. State towards drought and leaving other areas, such as the fire of northern California, abnormally dry.

Dalton reported from Los Angeles. Associate journalist Courtney Bonnell contributed from Phoenix.

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