Camp fire’s cause may take weeks to determine
sat under a dark canopy of ash and smoke.
Homes and businesses had been reduced to piles of twisted metal. Tall pine trees and utility poles smoldered. According to the California Teachers Assn., at least five of the nine schools in Paradise were destroyed, including Paradise Elementary School.
Cars abandoned by fleeing motorists who found themselves unable to escape lay crumpled in the roadways, their tires melted.
The bodies of five people were discovered on Edgewood Lane in vehicles overtaken by the fire. Others were found outside their cars and homes. Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea said they could not immediately be identified because they were burned so badly.
“There were people who weren’t able to get out,” Honea said, speaking from a makeshift command post at Butte College, which had been closed Thursday. As he talked, flakes of white ash
fell on his uniform as strong winds continued to sweep across the nearby burning ridges.
Authorities are recovering bodies “with as much dignity as we can afford them,” he said.
It could be weeks before officials determine the cause of the fire, named because it began near Camp Creek Road in Butte County. On Friday, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. notified state regulators that one of its high-voltage power lines located near where the fire began had malfunctioned shortly before the first flames were reported on Thursday morning.
Fueled by strong northeast winds and a parched landscape, the fire grew to 90,000 acres by Friday evening.
It forced more than 50,000 people in Paradise and surrounding towns to evacuate. Many of them spilled onto a four-lane road called Skyway — the main evacuation route out of Paradise — that quickly became jammed. Residents described
sitting in traffic as flames on both sides of the road reached for their cars.
Faced with worsening gridlock, fire officials said, they made a crucial decision to focus their energy on rescuing people stranded on the road, unable to move, rather than try to beat back the growing inferno.
By Friday afternoon, it was only 5% contained.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said that a few thousand firefighters had been dispatched to battle the blaze. At least three had been injured.
Firefighters’ assault on the Camp fire has, so far, prevented it from reaching Chico, home to about 90,000 people, west of Paradise.
Parts of Paradise were still burning Friday afternoon as law enforcement authorities and utility company workers began to survey the damage. Honea said conditions were too “unstable” for sheriff ’s deputies to go door-to-door looking for survivors.
Though it was wellknown
as a retirement community, the town was also home to about 12,000 families.
Paradise Vice Mayor Greg Bolin said early reports from fire officials suggested that 80 to 90% of the town had burned. Bolin, who lost his home, said: “The town is gone.”
“The magnitude of the destruction in Paradise and a year ago in Santa Rosa is such that it will take many years to recover,” said state Sen. Jim Nielsen, a Republican who represents Paradise and toured the destruction Friday.
As towns emptied and evacuation centers filled, many residents’ focus shifted from securing their own safety to searching for family members and friends.
Teresa Roberts spent the day frantically trying to reach her mother, Marilyn Allen, 69, and grandfather, Richard Torres, 85, whose home of 13 years she feared was lost. Neither had registered themselves as safe on the Red Cross website. Her mother’s cellphone rang and
rang. She didn’t respond to emails.
“I’m just terrified,” said Roberts. “Did they get out? That’s all I want to know.”
This part of Butte County is no stranger to wildfires. Ten years ago, a blaze swept through Paradise, destroying dozens of structures and forcing chaotic evacuations; the resulting panic was so alarming, angry residents showed up for months at community meetings demanding change.
“There had been no planning,” said Peggy Musgrave, 85, who escaped that fire only to find herself in gridlock again Thursday, joined once more by thousands of Paradise residents fleeing another raging fire.
But this time, Musgrave said, she felt there was a measure of control. People had been mailed instructions on what to do: what to pack, what routes to take out of town and a reminder to plan for their pets.
When she learned through word of mouth of the encroaching Camp fire, she went to her closet for her
box of prized photographs and records, and to another for her jewelry. Then she left.
Amid the scenes of devastation and loss were stories of generosity.
Farshad Azad, a taekwondo grandmaster, turned his studio in Chico into a shelter for evacuees and their pets. By Friday afternoon, about 30 people had moved in.
Among his guests was a woman who had lost her home but managed to rescue 11 cats from her neighborhood.
“People are helping each other out right now, and that’s how it should be,” Azad said. “We should be in a place where we exercise compassion and kindness and humanity. It’s just too bad that stuff like that has to come out of disasters and tragedies.”