Nine die in California as wildfires rage
Firefighters in California yesterday battled raging blazes at both ends of the state that have left at least nine people dead and thousands of homes destroyed — but there was little hope of containing the flames anytime soon. More than 250,000 people have been ordered to evacuate a wide area near the state capital Sacramento and, in southern California, the Hollywood resort town of Malibu. So far, all nine fatalities were reported in the town of Paradise, in Butte County.
Two monster wildfires, including the most destructive in California’s history, burned out of control yesterday, having already killed at least nine people, destroyed scores of buildings and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
Nine people were found dead in and around the Northern California town of Paradise, where more than 6,700 homes and businesses were burned down by the 90,000 acre Camp Fire, the state’s most destructive on record, authorities said.
“This event was the worst-case scenario. It was the event we have feared for a long time,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at a Friday evening press conference. “Regrettably, not everybody made it out.”
About 800km to the south in Los Angeles County, the 35,000 acre Woolsey Fire was threatening thousands of homes and more than 200,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders yesterday morning.
All the residents of Malibu, a posh oceanside enclave that is home to about 13,000 people 50km west of downtown Los Angeles, were told to get out on Friday.
The fire has destroyed a “significant number” of homes, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said at a news conference on Friday, but officials were still determining how many.
Firefighters have been unable to build any containment lines around the Woolsey Fire, but officials said yesterday they hoped to take advantage of a lull in winds to make progress.
President Donald Trump, weighing in on the emergency during a trip to France, said yesterday morning that “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.
“Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!” he added.
Representatives for Acting California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who was elected on Tuesday to replace Jerry Brown, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Trump, a Republican, 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 fuel blazes.
Officials in the state have countered that climate change is the culprit.
Last month, after Trump rekindled his criticism of California’s wildfire prevention steps, a spokesman for Brown said Trump’s comments lacked credibility.
Several of the victims of the Camp Fire, which broke out on Thursday at the edge of the Plumas National Forest northeast of Sacramento, were found in or near burned out cars, police said.
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.
Some 35 people had been reported missing and three firefighters had been injured.
The blaze was only 5% contained as of nightfall on Friday.
The Woolsey Fire also broke out on Thursday in Ventura County near Los Angeles and quickly jumped the 101 Freeway, a major north-south artery, in several places.
On Friday, it crossed the Santa Monica Mountains toward Malibu, where flames driven by wind gusts of up to 80kph raced down hillsides and through canyons toward multi-million dollar homes.
Yesterday morning, flames were nearing Malibu’s Pepperdine University, a private residential college with 7,700 students, where many remained sheltered on the main campus.
School officials told the students that they have been assured by fire officials that the university’s buildings were built to withstand fire.
In a video posted on Twitter that showed some students wearing paper masks, Connie Horton, vice president for student affairs, told them to expect “more smoke and maybe even ash and probably some frightening visuals, things like a tree on 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.