Wildfire kills five trying to escape by car

FIVE people burned to death in their cars as a wildfire engulfed the town of Paradise in northern California.

Only a day after it began the fire quadrupled in size to more than 100 square miles and levelled the town, about 180 miles north-east of San Francisco, which has a population of 30,000. More than 2,000 firefighters were battling the blaze,

Residents fled in panic with some crashing their cars. Mark Bass, a police officer, said the evacuation was “just a wall of fire on each side of us, and we could hardly see the road”.

With fires burning in both northern and southern California 157,000 people have been evacuated, including much of the city of Malibu.

Among the evacuees was Kim Kardashian West, the reality television star.