Amid horror of loss, blaze’s growth slows
Butte County: Fire’s death toll matches highest in state history
PARADISE, Butte County — The death toll in the Camp Fire raging in Butte County rose to 29 on Sunday, tying the inferno with the deadliest toll in California’s recorded history.
Officials said 228 people remain unaccounted for, even as many others who were reported missing turned up in area shelters.
The fire that began Thursday morning and devastated the town of Paradise now matches the 1933 Griffith Park Fire in Los Angeles as the state’s cruelest in human cost.
In one sign of hope, despite howling winds and fire-friendly weather, the Camp Fire grew only moderately Sunday, as firefighters were able to hold the line. Winds are forecast to lessen by Mon--
day, although dry conditions will continue.
The Camp Fire holds another harsh record as the state’s most destructive in terms of property loss: It destroyed 6,453 homes and 260 commercial buildings, numbers that officials said are expected to increase significantly.
Gov. Jerry Brown called the wildfire “truly a tragedy,” and said Earth’s warming climate “is threatening our whole way of life.”
As his deputies updated statistics on the Camp Fire and two others raging in Southern California, the governor warned that it will take billions of dollars — “probably hundreds of billions” — to fight a growing number of firestorms in the decades to come.
“This is not the new normal,” Brown said. “This is the new abnormal.”
On Sunday, officials estimated that 52,000 people had evacuated the region, as the inferno grew to 111,000 acres, up from 105,000 Saturday. Containment is at 25 percent.
More than 4,500 firefighters are fighting the blaze with help from at least 500 engines, 79 bulldozers and 23 helicopters, officials said. Seven other states have sent in people and equipment to help.
In Paradise, a parking lot has been transformed into a grim staging area for hearses.
Among the dead is Ellen Walker, whose body was found in bed in a burned house in Concow, a remote area east of Paradise, authorities confirmed. She was in her 70s.
A family friend, Nancy Breeding, said Walker was sick and home alone when the fire began. She said Walker’s husband was at work and called a neighbor to tell his wife to evacuate. Then, assuming his wife had escaped, he looked for her at rescue centers, to no avail.
“They were married for 20-something years. He’s having a difficult time accepting,” Breeding said. “This is a devastating thing, and it’s happening to so many people.”
The fire has hollowed out a community, ravaging Paradise landmarks, schools and businesses. Yet on Sunday, even as the conflagration raged, residents and community leaders looked toward the future with hope.
“Paradise has always been a close-knit, strong community,” Mayor Jody Jones said. “We need to depend on that strength more than ever now. We have a long and arduous process in front of us, but we are committed to rebuilding and making our town Paradise again.”
The Paradise City Council expects to move into a municipal building in Chico, about 14 miles to the west, to resume government functions, with the regular meeting happening as scheduled Tuesday.
Mike Greer, a trustee with the Paradise Unified School District whose own home burned down, said classes can resume when the area is safe. Yet many of the district’s 4,000 or so students will have no home to return to, and it’s unclear how many students will be able to come back. Greer said he hopes many will find temporary housing in surrounding communities.
“We are talking and discussing different ideas,” he said. “Do we rent a building in Chico for Paradise students? We have online learning.”
He said that when Pacific Gas and Electric Co. notified school officials that power could be cut off because of the fire risk, the district held school anyway Thursday. Greer said he believes that decision saved lives, because several children and employees were together and not in homes that burned down. Teachers loaded students onto buses and into their own cars, then drove through the flames to safety.
“We are very resilient in Paradise,” Greer said.
Dry air and strong winds from the northeast have created prime conditions for the blaze to spread southwest toward Oroville. In addition to Paradise, officials have issued evacuation orders to the communities of Magalia, Concow, Butte Creek Canyon and Butte Valley, as well as nearby hot spots.
Winds that whipped up to 40 mph in the higher elevations over the weekend are expected to relax early in the week. But with humidity down into the teens, the area will remain bone dry.
“In terms of the overall long-range (forecast), there is no significant precipitation or cooldown,” Ryan Walbrun, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Sunday. “The forecast remains dry and unseasonably warm through the rest of the week and through the weekend at this time.”
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection expanded a red-flag warning to vast portions of the state Sunday, indicating a high level of fire risk.
On Sunday, Brown requested that President Trump declare a major disaster for California, indicating his judgment that the state can’t provide an adequate response to the fires on its own. The step would authorize federal recovery programs beyond the essential assistance provided under a state of emergency, which Trump declared Friday.
Despite contentious tweets from Trump blaming “poor” forest management for the fires blazing in Butte County and Southern California, Brown struck a polite tone in his letter and thanked the president for Friday’s emergency declaration.
The governor outlined the outsize effects the Camp Fire will have on Paradise and Butte County because many older, disabled and poor people live there.
“There will be an extraordinary need for sheltering of the evacuees, particularly those who have fled Paradise and will be displaced for quite some time,” Brown wrote.
The fire’s cause is under investigation, but PG&E officials Friday told state regulators that a high-voltage power line near the area where the blaze started experienced a problem just before the fire was reported.
Five emergency shelters were full Sunday: Butte County Fairgrounds, Glenn County Fairgrounds, Chico Elks Club, Oroville Nazarene Church and Neighborhood Church.
The Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds was the only shelter that had room.