CAMP FIRE
- Acres burned: 90,000 acres
- Containment: 5%
- Structures threatened: 15,000
- Structures destroyed: 6,713
PARADISE, Calif. (AP) – The latest on the Camp Fire in Butte County (all times local):
UPDATE (6:20 p.m.) – Authorities say nine people have been confirmed dead in a Northern California wildfire. It has become the most destructive wildfire in California history.
Butte County Sheriff Korey Honea said Friday that some people were found inside their cars and others were found outside vehicles. He says he doesn’t have all the details on the circumstances of the deaths.
Sheriff’s officials earlier had reported six deaths.
Authorities say the fire burning around the town of Paradise has become the state’s most destructive since record-keeping began.
UPDATE (6:15 p.m.) – California fire officials say a wildfire in Northern California has destroyed more than 6,500 structures and grown to 140 square miles.
Fire officials said Friday the destroyed structures include 6,453 homes and another 260 commercial structures. The fire is burning around the town of Paradise.
UPDATE (4:55 p.m.) – A sheriff’s spokeswoman has confirmed a sixth death in a Northern California wildfire that has forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
Butte County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Megan McMann said Friday she did not have details on the circumstances of the death.
Sheriff’s officials said earlier that five people were found dead in vehicles that were torched by flames in the same area in the town of Paradise.
They said the five could not immediately be identified because of the burns they suffered.
UPDATE (4:30 p.m.) – Pacific Gas & Electric Co. says it experienced a problem on an electrical transmission line near the site of a massive fire in Northern California minutes before the blaze broke out.
The company said in a one-paragraph summary filed Thursday with state utility regulators that it had experienced an outage on the line about 15 minutes before the fire started. The company said it later observed damage to a transmission tower on the line near the town of Paradise.
The fire has killed at least five people and destroyed hundreds of homes. Paradise is 180 miles northeast of San Francisco.
The filing was first reported by KQED News.
Fire officials have not determined a cause for the blaze.
UPDATE (4:15 p.m.) – Paradise town councilmember Melissa Schuster lost her 16-acre Chapelle de L’Artiste retreat, a posh property with a chapel, pond and pool.
But Friday she was clinging to glimmers of hope inspired by two furry llamas – Shyann and Twinkle Star Heart.
“Somehow they made it through,” Schuster said.
She had stopped trying to hook up a trailer for the animals and fled the home and property with just three cats on Thursday when the day turned pitch black as fire and smoke roared in.
On Friday she was trying to stay positive. She’d heard her son’s home and hay barn survived, along with Town Hall and even some parts of the hospital.
“It’s Paradise,” she said. “It’s always been Paradise and we will bring it back.”
UPDATE (3:45 p.m.) – Blocks and blocks of homes and businesses in a Northern California town have been destroyed by a wildfire.
Parts of the town of Paradise were still on fire on Friday. At least five people in the town died.
Patrick Knuthson, a fourth-generation resident of Paradise, said only two of roughly 22 houses on his street survived. Knuthson stayed behind and was able to save his home.
He said he lost his previous home to a wildfire in 2008.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said about 20 deputies have also lost their homes.
UPDATE (2:30 p.m.) – A surgical nurse who evacuated from a Northern California hospital with a wildfire roaring nearby says she had to return after her vehicle went up in flames and one of her pant legs caught fire.
Nichole Jolly said Friday that she helped evacuate patients Thursday from Adventist Health Feather River Hospital in the town of Paradise, where at least five people died.
When she tried to leave, she got stuck in the firestorm.
She said firefighters extinguished her smoldering pants, covered her in a fire blanket and brought her back to the hospital, where she waited out the fire.
She said doctors extinguished burning trees around the hospital to try to keep the flames at bay.
Jolly eventually escaped the town.
UPDATE (1:20 p.m.) – Nurses and patients have recounted their dramatic escapes from a hospital in a Northern California town that was devastated by a ferocious wildfire.
Nurse Darrel Wilken told the Chico Enterprise-Record newspaper on Friday that the fire in the town of Paradise came so quickly that he and other employees at the Feather River Hospital used their own cars to evacuate patients.
Wilken said he took three patients in his car and that two of them were in critical condition. He says he battled gridlocked traffic on a road surrounded on both sides by fire.
Paradise resident Cody Knowles said his wife, Francine, was having gallbladder surgery Thursday morning.
When the evacuation was announced, she was still asleep from anesthesia. He waited until she woke up and they escaped in a hospital employee’s car.
The hospital says it evacuated 60 patients to other facilities.
UPDATE (1:10 p.m.) – A road into a Northern California town devastated by wildfire is eerily deserted.
There were no signs of life Friday on the road toward the town of Paradise except for the occasional chirping of a bird. A thick, yellow haze from the wildfire hung in the air and gave the appearance of twilight in the middle of the day.
Strong winds had blown the blackened needles on some evergreens straight to one side. A burned out car with its doors open sat on the shoulder.
Five people have been found dead in Paradise from the fire, and sheriff’s officials say they are investigating additional reports of fatalities. Thousands of buildings were destroyed.
The town of 27,000 about 180 miles northeast of San Francisco was completely evacuated.
UPDATE (12:10 p.m.) – A Northern California sheriff says authorities are trying to confirm reports that more than five people died when a wildfire devastated the town of Paradise.
Five people were found dead in vehicles Friday but Butte County Sheriff Korey Honea told television stations KHSL/KNVN in Chico that additional reports of deaths are being investigated.
Honea said flames and downed power lines in Paradise are preventing deputies from reaching some areas.
The five victims were found in vehicles in the same area of the town, where residents described traffic jams and panic as they tried to escape flames on Thursday.
Thousands of buildings were destroyed in Paradise, about 180 miles northeast of San Francisco.
UPDATE (11:25 a.m.) – A Northern California university has closed its campus and canceled weekend events because of a fast-burning wildfire.
But officials with California State University, Chico posted on Twitter Friday that the campus is not under evacuation and that dining halls and residence halls remain open.
The university says the fire has not entered Chico city limits and is moving away.
Chico has a population of about 93,000 people and is 15 miles west of the town of Paradise, which was destroyed by a fire that killed at least five people.
Paradise is 180 miles northeast of San Francisco and drifting smoke from the fire has made the air unhealthy in the San Francisco Bay Area.
UPDATE (11:20 a.m.) – Jessica Van Amber searched shelters, called around and appealed to people on social media to help her find her aunt and mom missing after a ferocious Northern California wildfire.
About 24 hours after she last heard from the women as they rushed to try get out of the town of Magalia, Van Amber posted on Twitter: “UPDATE: MY MOM HAS BEEN FOUND!!!!!!”
Van Amber her uncle called report the women were safe and on their way out Friday morning to reunite with relatives in San Francisco Bay Area.
She says the women stayed in the home overnight while the fire took over the neighborhood and eventually sought shelter in their car. Early Friday, they drove out of town and made contact with relatives.
Butte County officials are encouraging those looking for loved ones to check the safeandwell.org website. To request a welfare check or file a missing person’s report, call the Butte County Sheriff’s Office at (530) 538-7322.
UPDATE (11:15 a.m.) – Sheriff’s officials in Northern California say the five people found dead in vehicles torched by a wildfire’s flames could not immediately be identified because of the burns they suffered.
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office said Friday that autopsies will be conducted.
Officials say the victims were found in the same area in the town of Paradise, near a main thoroughfare heading out of the town that was consumed by flames.
All of the city’s 27,000 residents were ordered to evacuate on Thursday as the wildfire quickly turned into an inferno.
Many residents said traffic jams developed as they left as panicked people fled, some abandoning their cars to try to escape on foot.
The fire has grown to nearly 110 square miles.
Paradise is 180 miles (289 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.
UPDATE (11 a.m.) – Northern California officials say investigators found five people dead in vehicles that were torched by the flames of a ferocious wildfire.
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office said Friday the victims were found in the same area in the town of Paradise.
The fire has grown to nearly 110 square miles.
Paradise is 180 miles northeast of San Francisco.
UPDATE (10:20 a.m.) – A California National Guard official says 100 military police are headed to Northern California to help evacuate people from a wildfire.
Maj. Gen. David Baldwin says other military personnel are studying satellite imagery to assess the scope of the damage and map the fire.
The ferocious fire near the Northern California town of Paradise has grown to nearly 110 square miles.
Paradise is 180 miles northeast of San Francisco.
Smoke from the fire has made the air unhealthy in the San Francisco Bay Area.
UPDATE (9:55 a.m.) – A New Hampshire woman says she and her brother are frantically trying to get information about their 83-year-old mother, who lives in the California town of Magalia near the devastated town of Paradise.
Diane Forsman says Jean Forsman can’t walk and is on oxygen.
She says: “We’re trying to remain hopeful until we get word. We don’t know what the outcome will be.”
She and her brother posted on Facebook and Twitter Thursday asking if anyone had seen their mother. They tried calling 911 and other numbers. They were told that officials had a list of 300 to 400 welfare checks to do.
Finally, they got word through Facebook that someone in her neighborhood had picked up a disabled woman but they haven’t been able to confirm whether it’s their mom.
Butte County officials are encouraging those looking for loved ones to check the safeandwell.org website. To request a welfare check or file a missing person’s report, call the Butte County Sheriff’s Office at (530) 538-7322.
UPDATE (9:30 a.m.) – The director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services says a fire in Northern California has claimed lives.
Mark Ghilarducci said Friday the number of deaths was not known. He said there are also injuries.
He says the magnitude of the destruction is unbelievable and heartbreaking.
The fire near the town of Paradise has grown to nearly 110 square miles.
UPDATE (9:15 a.m.) – Some people who escaped a roaring wildfire in northern California spent the night at a church in the nearby city of Chico.
Residents of the town of Paradise told harrowing tales Friday of a slow-motion escape from a fire so close they could feel it inside their vehicles as they sat stuck in terrifying gridlock.
They say it was like the entire town of 27,000 residents decide to leave at once.
Fire surrounded the evacuation route and drivers panicked, some crashing and others abandoning their vehicles to try their luck on foot.
Many of the rural residents have propane tanks on their property and the tanks were exploding.
Resident Karen Auday says “they were going off like bombs.”
UPDATE (8:45 a.m.) – Authorities have issued an unhealthy air quality alert for parts of the San Francisco Bay Area as smoke from a massive wildfire drifts south, polluting the air.
Officials say the thousands of structures in the town of Paradise, 180 miles northeast of San Francisco, were destroyed by the blaze that has charred 110 square miles. At least 40,000 people have been displaced.
The air in San Francisco Friday is hazy and the smell of smoke is overwhelming, prompting officials to declare air quality unhealthy.
They are advising older people and children to move physical activities indoors.
All people are encouraged to limit their outdoor activities.
#CampFire [update] Pulga Road at Camp Creek Road near Jarbo Gap (Butte County) is now 70,000 acres and 5% contained. Evacuations in place. https://t.co/CJkryyPNVZ pic.twitter.com/7FAmIjowuQ
— CAL FIRE (@CAL_FIRE) November 9, 2018
UPDATE (8:20 a.m.) – A fire official says a Northern California wildfire has put 15,000 homes and 2,000 commercial buildings at “imminent danger of burning.”
Capt. Koby Johns of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection also said Friday that about 2,000 buildings have already been destroyed. He described those numbers as “very elastic.”
Johns says heavy winds continue to drive the fire but winds are expected to ease Friday afternoon, which could give firefighters an opportunity to start containing it.
UPDATE (7:50 a.m.) – A California fire official says a blaze in Northern California nearly quadrupled in size overnight.
Capt. Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection says the fire near the town of Paradise has grown to nearly 110 square miles.
UPDATE (7:15 a.m.) – Officials in Northern California say a wildfire that devastated a town of 27,000 is moving north and have ordered people in two Sierra Nevada foothill communities to leave their homes.
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office says an evacuation ordered was issued Friday for the small communities of Stirling City and Inskip, north of Paradise, where thousands of homes were destroyed.
Cal Fire Capt. Bill Murphy says winds have calmed down in the valley but that there are “shifting, erratic winds” with speeds of up to 45 miles per hour along ridge tops.
The blaze that started Thursday morning east of Paradise and decimated the town also spread to the west.
It reached the edge of Chico, a city of 90,000 people Thursday night. Murphy says firefighters were able to stop the fire at the edge of the city, where evacuation orders remained in place.
UPDATE (6:15 a.m.) – Evacuations have been ordered on the edges of the Northern California city of Chico, which is about 15 miles from a town where thousands of buildings were destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire.
Capt. Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection says flames from the blaze that devastated the town of Paradise had reached the eastern side of Chico, a city of about 90,000 people.
Authorities have said that at least two firefighters and multiple residents were injured in Paradise. McLean said Friday morning that he had no immediate update on injuries.
He says strong winds made it difficult for aircraft to drop retardant effectively on the fire.
UPDATE (12 a.m.) – A fast-moving wildfire that ravaged a Northern California town Thursday sent residents racing to escape on roads that turned into tunnels of fire as thick smoke darkened the daytime sky.
A Cal Fire official said thousands of structures were destroyed.
Harrowing tales of escape and heroic rescues emerged from Paradise, where the entire community of 27,000 was ordered to evacuate. Witnesses reported seeing homes, supermarkets, businesses, restaurants, schools and a retirement home up in flames.
The fire was reported shortly after daybreak in a rural area. By nightfall, it had consumed more than 28 square miles and was raging out of control.
Authorities say at least two firefighters and multiple residents were injured.
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