Massive wildfire in northern California kills at least 23

STRIP OF THE DAY

California’s city of Paradise laid in ruins after a massive wildfire hit the 27,000-resident city on Saturday. After the blaze, known as the “Camp Fire,” the death toll rose to at least 23 due to the strong winds and dry conditions in the forecast.

Severe hot and dry “devil winds” kicked up yesterday in fire ravaged Southern California and more winds were expected in the north, fanning the flames of wildfires that have killed at least 25 people, officials said. “This is getting bad,” said meteorologist Marc Chenard, with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park Maryland. “We’ll get sustained winds of up to 40 mph and gusts between 60 mph and 70 mph,” he said yesterday morning of the Santa Ana “devil wind” hitting the Los Angeles area where the Woolsey Fire has been burning since Thursday in the tinder-dry canyon of Ventura County and claimed at least 2 lives. The air-masses blowing across the western U.S. deserts including Death Valley toward the coast are expected to bring the sustained high winds at least through Tuesday, he said. Additional 40 mph winds will blow across the Sierra Nevada foothills in Northern California near Sacramento where the so-called Camp Fire has claimed at least 23 lives. The Camp Fire burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in Paradise, more structures than any other California wildfire on record, and the death toll, which could rise, also makes it one of the deadliest. Only the Griffith Park Fire in 1933 and Tunnel Fire in 1991 have claimed more lives.