New warning as fire toll rises to 23
Firefighters battled raging blazes at both ends of droughtstricken California on Sunday, with the death toll rising to at least 23 and strong winds and dry conditions in the forecast.
The largest fires were in Butte County, a scenic area in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains north of Sacramento, and in the Los Angeles area, where two deaths possibly related to a fire were reported.
Acrid smoke from the fire covered the sky for kilometres, the sun barely visible.
On the ground, cars caught in the flames were reduced to metal carcasses, while power lines were gnawed by the flames.
Butte County sheriff Kory Honea said 14 more bodies had been found, bringing the number of fatalities in a blaze known as the “Camp Fire” to 23.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for more than 52,000 people in the area.
In the town of Paradise, more than 6,700 buildings – including a hospital, a fuel station, and several restaurants – have been consumed by the fire. Rescuers removed human remains over several hours in Paradise and placed them in a black hearse.
Charred body parts were transported by bucket, while intact remains were carried in body bags.
Fanned by strong winds, the blaze had so far scorched 40,500ha and was 20% contained, the California department of forestry and fire protection said.
Three of the more than 3,200 firefighters deployed have been injured.
They estimate they will need three weeks to fully contain the blaze.
Power authorities told state officials that an outage had occurred near the spot where the fire erupted, The Sacramento Bee reported, but there is no official cause of the Camp Fire blaze.
President Donald Trump, in France for World War I commemorations, drew criticism for an unsympathetic reaction to the devastation.
“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor,” Trump tweeted.
“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!”
California Professional Firefighters head Brian Rice slammed the tweet as “ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines”.
He said the president’s claim that forest policies were mismanaged “is dangerously wrong”.
Trump later showed more sympathy.
“Our hearts are with those fighting the fires”, as well as the evacuees and families of the victims, he tweeted.
In southern California, more wildfires burned, including one just north of Los Angeles and another in Ventura County near Thousand Oaks, where a Marine Corps veteran shot dead 12 people in a country music bar on Wednesday.
Two bodies were found in Malibu – one of the most coveted locations in California and home to many Hollywood stars – in an area where the “Woolsey Fire” swept through.
It has not yet been confirmed they were fire victims.
Winds were expected until Tuesday across the region, strong enough to quickly spread flames in unexpected directions, officials said.