Forced out by deadly fires, then trapped in traffic
Thousands of residents in the wooded town of Paradise did what they were told to do when the morning skies turned dark and an inferno raged across the hills: They got in their cars and fled. What happened next was the vehicular equivalent of a stampede, packing the roads to a standstill.
In the hours after the devastating wildfire broke out around Paradise on Thursday morning, tree-lined streets in the town swiftly became tunnels of fire, blocked by fallen power lines and burning timber. Frantic residents, encircled by choking dense smoke and swirling embers, ran out of gas and ditched their cars. Fire crews struggling to reach the town used giant earthmovers to plough abandoned vehicles off the road as if they were snowdrifts after a blizzard.
Of the 23 people known on Sunday to have been killed by ■ the fire in Paradise, six had died in their cars.
Farther south near Los Angeles, more than 250,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes, a mass evacuation that likewise was all but halted by snarled roads at times.