HELL IN PARADISE
25 dead as fires rage through California
Wildfires burned at opposite ends of California on Saturday as celebrities were forced to flee from their homes in Malibu and firefighters slammed President Trump’s threat to pull federal aid over “poor management” of forestry.
Both ends of California are ablaze this weekend — with massive, fast-spreading wildfires claiming at least 23 lives in the north and two in the south, while forcing a quarter-million people from their homes, including in celebrity-rich Malibu. Some 110 people are missing. In the north, the so-called “Camp Fire” near Sacramento reduced homes and cars to smoking rubble, while in the south, lines of fire bore down on more houses as dense smoke filled the sky.
“I know that the news of us recovering bodies has to be disconcerting,” Sheriff Kory Honea of Butte County, in the northern part of the state, said Saturday evening. “We are doing everything we possibly can to identify those remains and make contact with the next of kin.’’
The 100,000-acre Camp Fire left nearly the entire town of Paradise in ruins at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Most of its 27,000 residents were still barred from returning by Saturday night.
It is the state’s most destructive wildfire since record-keeping began.
One evacuee, Brynn Parrott Chatfield, prayed as her family used a dashcam to record their efforts to escape.
“Heavenly father, please help us, please help us to be safe,” Chatfield says in footage obtained by the Daily Mail, her voice cracking as flames lick the pavement and smoke obscures the roadway ahead.
Blackened husks of cars and buses were strewn about roadways in apocalyptic scenes, photos showed.
The chaotic evacuation caused wide- spread gridlock and forced many people to abandon their vehicles and flee on foot.
“The fire was so close I could feel it in my car through rolled-up windows,” said Rita Miller, who fled Paradise with her disabled mother.
A toxic yellow haze tinted the air as rescuers struggled to reach not just people, but also animals, including horses and a potbelly pig.
Officials ordered new evacuations southeast of Paradise on Saturday, as more than 3,000 firefighters battled the flames and forecasters called for heavy winds.
While the cause has not been determined, radio transmissions indicated a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. power line was sparking in the area when the now-156square-mile blaze began Thursday.
Meanwhile, in the south, two blazes — the Woolsey and Hill fires — have burned scores of Malibu area mansions and suburban homes north and west of downtown LA.
Two people were found dead along a highway in Malibu, but authorities in Los Angeles did not offer further details.
Kim Kardashian West, Caitlyn Jenner, Lady Gaga, Alyssa Milano, Scott Baio and Guillermo del Toro were among the celebrities forced from their homes.
The Woolsey fire doubled in size Saturday, expanding to more than 70,000 acres.
“Our firefighters have been facing some extreme, tough fire conditions that they said they’ve never seen in their lives,” LA County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said.
At least 150 houses were destroyed in the county, and more than 200,000 people have been ordered to evacuate.
The Woolsey fire destroyed a set at the Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills — where scenes for the popular HBO series “Westworld’’ are shot.
It scorched the Villa De La Bina, where “The Bachelor” tapes.
Flames also lashed Thousand Oaks, a city already reeling from a mass shooting at a bar Wednesday that left 13 dead including the gunman.