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Thread: 'A whole town was wiped out in 24 hours': 5 dead in California wildfires

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    #DeSantis2024 Teh One Who Knocks's Avatar
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    Sad 'A whole town was wiped out in 24 hours': 5 dead in California wildfires

    Jeremy Childs,Megan Diskin,Cheri Carlson and Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY




    MALIBU, Calif. — Raging wildfires across California have killed at least five people and driven 157,000 people from their homes, fire officials said Friday. Near Los Angeles, a large portion of the beachside town of Malibu was ordered evacuated as a wind-driven blaze jumped the U.S. 101 Freeway and raced toward the sea.

    In Northern California's Butte County, the sheriff's office said investigators found five people dead in vehicles that were torched by the flames of a ferocious wildfire that roared through the town of Paradise.

    The victims were found in the same area of the devastated retirement community that also lost some 2,000 structures.

    "A whole town was wiped out in 24 hours," said Rocklin Police officer Jon Gee. "It's crazy."

    Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said 157,000 people had been forced from their homes in three major fires in the Golden State, including the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise.

    The blaze, which erupted 80 miles north of Sacramento, quadrupled overnight to nearly 110 square miles, according to fire officials.

    Maj. Gen. David Baldwin of the California National Guard said 100 military police were en route to Northern California to help evacuate people from the Paradise area. He said other military personnel were studying satellite imagery to assess the scope of the damage and map the fire.

    In Southern California, some 75,000 homes were ordered evacuated in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, with the Los Angeles County Fire Department tweeting: "imminent threat."

    Ventura County Fire Department Captain Scott Dettorre warned that as the fire crossed the famous highway 101, a major transportation artery, “it will make its historic and typical run all the way down Pacific Coast Highway, threatening more homes, more property, more lives,” KTLA-TV reports.

    Fire officials initially ordered the evacuation of all 13,000 residents of the community, which stretches 21 miles along the ocean, but later scaled it back to the western two-thirds of the city.

    The Woolsey Fire had exploded to more than 5 square miles Friday morning and was continuing to grow.

    Homeowners fleeing the wind-driven blaze around Malibu jammed roadways as the fire crept closer to the affluent, surfside community, which is home to numerous movie and TV stars. The celebrity site The Blast said homes belonging to Mel Gibson, Caitlyn Jenner, Lady Gaga, Courteney Cox, Julia Roberts and Patrick Dempsey were located in the evacuation zone.

    As cars snarled Pacific Coast Highway, some residents lined up five deep at a gas station for a last chance to get fuel. All were being directed south toward the safety of Santa Monica.



    At the Point Dume Village shopping Center north of the famed Malibu pier, business was brisk at a coffee bar, the Cafe De La Plage. The customers all fit into the look of the locals — T-shirts, shorts and sandals — but many of them were evacuees who had fled their homes the night before in the belief Malibu would be a safe haven.

    “I am just very unhappy,“ said James Collins, 48, from the small community of Cornell. He said he had been evacuated at 4 a.m. but he was taking it in stride, noting the rest of the nation has had its share of natural disasters recently.

    “Other people have rain. We have fire,“ said Collins.

    A pair of Dutch bicyclists in a trek from Vancouver, British Columbia, to San Diego were trying to stay ahead of the flames. They had gotten on the road before the highway closures and peddled as smoke billowed in the hills nearby.

    “We are not afraid,” said one of them, Twan Goense, 24, of Delft, the Netherlands.

    As the fires closed in on Malibu, one resident on Twitter pleaded for help in evacuating 40 horses from a farm, The Malibu Times reports.

    Pepperdine University shut down its Malibu and Calabasas campuses and initiated shelter-in-place protocols as the fire roared southward, sweeping into the Santa Monica mountains.

    The Woolsey fire was one of three ravaging the state, with the northern California town of Paradise largely destroyed overnight.

    The swift-moving Camp Fire moved Friday morning into the eastern side of Chico, a city with a population of around 90,000. Fire officials said strong winds had hampered efforts to drop retardant by aircraft.



    As the blaze roared into Paradise, it turned escape routes into tunnels of fire as the entire community of 27,000 residents were ordered to evacuate.

    On Thursday, as flames engulfed Paradise, frantic residents racing to safety plunged into the thick smoke that darkened the daytime sky and made driving difficult.

    “We were surrounded by fire, we were driving through fire on each side of the road,” said police officer Mark Bass, who lives in Paradise and works in neighboring Chico.

    Bass evacuated his family and then returned to the fire to help rescue several disabled residents, including a man trying to carry his bedridden wife to safety. “It was just a wall of fire on each side of us, and we could hardly see the road in front of us.”

    Sherri Pritchard said she only had time to grab a few pictures before fleeing with her family and dogs, even leaving clothes behind.

    "It was crazy, because when we were sitting in traffic people were panicking," she said. "It was chaos. I couldn't believe what people were doing."

    Reality TV celebrity Kim Kardashian-West, who lives in an area known as Hidden Hills in Los Angeles county, was among those forced to evacuate as the Woolsey Fire exploded to 8,000 acres, People magazine reported. She had been filming aerial shots in her private plane earlier for her Instagram Stories and realized her own home was threatened. Just landed back home and had 1 hour to pack up & evacuate our home. I pray everyone is safe,” she wrote.

    Friday morning, fire officials reported that the fire had jumped Highway 101 near the city of Calabasas.

    Camp Fire



    Cal Fire Capt. Scott McLean said a couple of thousand structures were destroyed in the town about 180 miles northeast of San Francisco. “Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed, it’s that kind of devastation,” he said.

    The National Weather Service issued red-flag warnings for fire dangers in many areas of the state, saying low humidity and strong winds were expected to continue through the evening.

    Acting California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Butte County, where the fire was burning about 80 acres per minute at one point, according to UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. That’s equal to about 60 football fields per minute.

    Hill Fire



    Earlier in the day, the Hill Fire near Thousand Oaks in Ventura Country needed just 12 minutes to jump Highway 101, one of the area’s primary roadways. It burned in the same path as the 2013 Springs Fire that torched 24,000 acres before running into the Pacific Ocean.

    The Hill Fire had consumed 10,000 acres, or 15 square miles, according to Cal Fire, though the Ventura County Fire Department reported no injuries or structure losses at a Thursday night press conference.

    “The first part of this fuel bed had not seen fire for many years. Drought-stricken fuels, Santa Ana wind conditions, low relative humidity, high temperatures: It’s a recipe for fire,” said Ventura County Fire Department Assistant Chief Chad Cook, the incident commander for the Hill Fire.

    Woolsey Fire

    The Woolsey Fire triggered a mandatory evacuation order for the entire beachside city of Malibu. The Los Angeles County Fire Department tweeted that the fire is headed to the ocean, punctuating the message with the declaration: "Imminent threat!"

    The fire swelled unabated to 8,000 acres over night in Ventura and Los Angeles counties with the Santa Ana winds fanning flames and forcing hundreds of people from their homes.

    Reality TV celebrity Kim Kardashian-West, who lives in an area known as Hidden Hills in Los Angeles county, was among those forced to evacuate their homes, People magazine reported. She had been filming aerial shots in her private plane earlier for her Instagram Stories and realized her own home was threatened.



    “Just landed back home and had 1 hour to pack up & evacuate our home. I pray everyone is safe,” she wrote.

    Friday morning, fire officials reported that the fire had jumped Highway 101 near the city of Calabasas.

    Contributing: Ventura County Star; Redding Record Searchlight; The Associated Press

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    mr. michelle jenneke deebakes's Avatar
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    Basement Dweller Godfather's Avatar
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    Fucking horrifying, I can't even imagine. We get huge wildfires too but they don't move this fast. These poor people can't even drive fast enough to escape sometimes... what a shit way to go

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    Shelter Dweller lost in melb.'s Avatar
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    Basement Dweller Godfather's Avatar
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    This Woolsey fire in LA is fucked too, I checked yesterday and it was around 10,000 acres but now it's up to 70,000 acres, burned 150 homes and there are several missing

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    The winds were crazy yesterday






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    Basement Dweller Godfather's Avatar
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    The news is saying 71 dead but more than 1000 missing. That's unbelievable, God I hope these headlines are exaggerated and the hundreds of people missing just haven't checked in... 12,000 structures destroyed is hard to even wrap your head around.
    Last edited by Godfather; 11-17-2018 at 08:58 AM.

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    mr. michelle jenneke deebakes's Avatar
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    in today's world, i would think it would be hard to stay missing for this long

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