California fires death toll at 25
PARADISE: The charred remains of 14 more people have been found in and around a northern California town overrun by a huge wildfire, officials said yesterday, raising the death toll to at least 23.
The bodies were recovered in and around Paradise, a mountain community 145km north of Sacramento that had been left devastated by what was known as the Camp Fire, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Scott Maclean said.
No details were available immediately about the circumstances of the deaths, he said, adding the victims’ badly burned condition would make identification difficult.
The fire burned down more than 6700 houses and businesses in Paradise, more structures than any other California wildfire on record, and the death toll, which could still rise, also makes it one of the deadliest.
Several of the bodies discovered in recent days were found in or near burned out cars, police say. The flames descended on Paradise so fast that many people were forced to abandon their vehicles and run for their lives down the sole road through the mountain town.
An additional 35 people have been reported missing and three firefighters have been injured.
Elsewhere, two other bodies were found in fires.
As of Saturday afternoon, the Camp Fire had blackened more than 40,500ha at the edge of the Plumas National Forest. Crews had cut containment lines around about 20% of the blaze.
About 800km to the south, the Woolsey Fire burning in the foothills above Malibu doubled in size over Friday night into Saturday (local time), threatening thousands of homes after triggering mandatory evacuation orders for 250,000 people in the upscale beach city as well as other communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
The fire has destroyed at least 177 homes and other structures and charred more than 83,000 acres as of yesterday, officials said.
All 13,000 residents of Malibu, 50km west of downtown Los Angeles, were told to get out on Saturday.
Two bodies were discovered in the area yesterday but it was too early to determine if they died from the Woolsey fire or another cause, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials said.
Firefighters took advantage of a lull in winds yesterday to build containment lines around 5% of the conflagration but warned winds were expected to pick up again today.
The Woolsey Fire broke out on Friday in Ventura County near Los Angeles and quickly jumped the 101 Freeway, a major northsouth artery, in several places.
On Saturday, it crossed the Santa Monica Mountains towards Malibu, where flames driven by wind gusts of up to 80kmh raced down hillsides and through canyons towards multimilliondollar homes.
Early on Saturday, flames approached Malibu’s Pepperdine University, a private residential college with 7700 students, where many remained sheltered on the main campus.
School officials told the students they have been assured by fire officials the university’s buildings were built to withstand fire.
Among those forced to flee the Malibu area were celebrities including Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian, who said on Twitter that flames had damaged the home she shares in nearby Calabasas with Kanye West.
In Ventura County, most of the town of Thousand
Oaks was ordered evacuated, adding to the anguish days after a gunman killed 12 people in a shooting rampage at a bar.
President Donald Trump, weighing in on the emergency during a trip to France, said yesterday ‘‘gross mismanagement of forests’’ was to blame.
‘‘There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,’’ he wrote in a Twitter post.
Trump has previously blamed California officials for fires and threatened to withhold funding, saying the state should do more to remove rotten trees and other debris that fuels blazes.
State officials have blamed climate change and say many of the burn areas have been in federallymanaged lands.
‘‘Our focus is on the Californians impacted by these fires and the first responders and firefighters working around the clock to save lives and property — not on the president’s inane and uninformed tweets,’’ Evan Westrub, a spokesman for California Governor Jerry Brown, said.