Fresh winds fan California inferno
Camp Fire now the deadliest in state’s history
Thousands of firefighters entered a fifth day on Monday digging battle lines to contain California’s worst wildfire as the windwhipped flames cleaved a merciless path through the state’s northern hills, leaving death and devastation in their wake.
The “Camp Fire” in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains north of Sacramento
has killed 29 people, matching the state’s deadliest brush blaze 85 years ago. More than 200 people are still unaccounted for.
It is the largest of several infernos that have sent a quarter of a million people fleeing their homes across the tinder-dry state, with winds of up to 100km/h fanning the flames.
As well as the historic loss of life, the blaze is also more destructive than any other on record, having razed 6,500 homes in the town of Paradise, effectively wiping it off the map.
About 4,500 firefighters from as far as Washington and Texas have been working to halt the advance of the inferno as “mass casualty” search teams backed by anthropologists and a DNA laboratory pick through the charred ruins to identify remains, sometimes reduced to no more than shards of bone.
At least 31 people have died in fire zones in north and south California, where acrid smoke has blanketed the sky for kilometres, the sun barely visible.
On the ground, cars were reduced to scorched metal skeletons, while piles of debris smoulder where houses stood, a brick wall or chimney remaining here and there.
The Camp Fire has matched the 1933 Griffith Park disaster in Los Angeles according to the California department of forestry and fire protection (Cal Fire).
Police say 228 people are unaccounted for in the Paradise area alone, though many may be in emergency shelters. Several fire-affected areas have been left with no cellphone service.
At the southern end of the state, the “Woolsey Fire” has destroyed mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity resort of Malibu, where the body count has been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway.
The National Weather Service issued a “red flag” warning of critical weather conducive to the spread of fire on Tuesday, with especially high winds expected in mountainous areas.
While some Malibu-area residents were allowed to return home late on Sunday, the city of Calabasas, just northeast of coastal Malibu, came under evacuation orders.
“This is not the new normal, this is the new abnormal. And this new abnormal will continue, certainly in the next 10 to 15 to 20 years,” California governor Jerry Brown said, referring to climate change effects. “Unfortunately, the best science is telling us that the dryness, warmth, drought, all those things, they’re going to intensify.”
At the weekend the Woolsey Fire engulfed parts of Thousand Oaks, where the community is still shell-shocked after a Marine Corps veteran killed 12 people in a music bar last Wednesday.
The blaze has consumed about 34,000ha, destroyed at least 177 buildings and was 15% contained, Cal Fire said.
Singer Miley Cyrus’s home was destroyed in southern California. “Completely devestated [sic] by the fires affecting my community. I am one of the lucky ones. My animals and LOVE OF MY LIFE made it out safely & that’s all that matters right now,” she tweeted. “My house no longer stands but the memories shared with family & friends stand strong.”
Many of the area’s residents own horses and for the past few days Twitter has been flooded with messages from people seeking and offering help.
Actor James Woods, a rare political conservative in liberal Hollywood, has made new friends by using his Twitter account to help find missing people and getting help for pets.
The Ventura County Humane Society said it was “deeply humbled by a $100,000 donation from [actor] Sandra Bullock and family” to rescue and care for evacuated animals.