Blaze is deadliest in state’s history
PARADISE, Calif. — The inferno that ravaged the wooded town of Paradise in Northern California became the deadliest wildfire in the state’s modern history Monday when officials said they had discovered the remains of 13 more people, bringing the death toll to 42.
The Butte County sheriff, Kory L. Honea, has said more than 200 people remain missing in and around the town, which sits in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and was popular with retirees.
The fire, which continues to rage in the hills and ravines east of the city of Chico, is also the most destructive fire in California history, with more than 6,475 structures destroyed, most of them homes.
Fires whipped by strong winds were raging through thousands of acres of forests and chaparral in both Northern and Southern California on Monday, having already wiped out a town in the Sierra Nevada and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents west of Los Angeles.
President Donald Trump on Monday evening said on Twitter that he had approved a request to declare the fires in California a major disaster, making people
affected eligible for various types of federal government support.
The Camp Fire, which decimated Paradise, has already burned about 113,000 acres and is only about 25 percent contained.
An estimated 370 structures have been destroyed in the Woolsey Fire west of Los Angeles, up from the 177 figure provided Sunday night. Another 57,000 structures are believed to be under threat. Two people have died in that fire, which is 20 percent contained and has charred more than 90,000 acres in communities like Malibu and Thousand Oaks.
Another blaze that has torn through 4,500 acres in Ventura County, the Hill Fire, was 80 percent contained.
A CONCERN OVER WHETHER PARADISE CAN REBUILD
While the Woolsey Fire chased residents from one of the wealthiest ZIP codes of California, near Malibu, the Camp Fire hit a low-income retirement community in Paradise. Some residents now wonder how — or if — it will be rebuilt.
“It had no real economy,” James Hana said of Paradise, where he has lived since 2002. The town was a haven
for residents who were elderly or retired, many of them in mobile homes. A quarter of its residents were over 65, according to census data from 2017. Fourteen percent of the population was below the poverty line.
He was worried about the state of his home’s insurance because of a divorce, and he said he did not know when he would be able to get back to work or what he would do until then.
“But I’m really concerned about what’s really going to happen with the town,” he said. “It’ll never come back to what it was.”
Gene McAnelly and Gary Brand, two 70-yearold friends in wheelchairs who said they both rely on Social Security checks to survive, both lost their homes in the fire. But they both are confident they will return, they’re just not sure how yet. “Just give me a tent,” McAnelly said. “I’ll camp out.”
A FORECAST OF STRONG WINDS, NO RAIN
Firefighters in California can expect little help from the weather over the next few days.
Conditions are forecast to worsen in Southern California, where the Woolsey and Hill fires are raging. Much of that region will face critical fire weather conditions through Tuesday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service, with low relative
humidity, no rain and a high-wind warning in effect for the mountains.
“It just seems to be a story about winds,” said Bonnie Bartling, a weather specialist at the Los Angeles/Oxnard Weather Forecast Office.
WISHING FOR HOPE IN THOUSAND OAKS
Blackened hills surrounded the 101 freeway and encircled the city of Thousand Oaks on Monday morning, the first time since the shooting at Borderline Bar & Grill that the city approached anything resembling normalcy. The wind had stayed calm through the weekend, giving firefighters the chance to make progress on the Woolsey Fire after it burned through more than 91,000 acres. But the Santa Ana winds were expected to pick up again Monday, which could easily mean more embers blowing through the canyons.
Several residents had stopped at a gas station in Calabasas on their way home, said Rashid Stevens, who said he saw cars packed to the brim come through early Monday morning.
“We’re all hoping it calms down here, finally,” he said. “They deserve that at least.”