At least 56 killed, 130 missing in California's deadliest wildfire

PARADISE, California - National Guard troops joined the grim search on Wednesday for more victims in the ruins of an incinerated northern California town while the death toll climbed to 56 in the most deadly and destructive wildfire in the state's history.

The latest fatality count was announced as authorities released a revised list of 130 people reported missing by loved ones after flames largely obliterated the Sierra foothills town of Paradise, about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco, last Thursday.

The majority on the list were over the age of 65. Nearly 230 people were initially reported as missing in the killer blaze, dubbed the Camp Fire. Most of those who remain unaccounted for are from Paradise, once home to 27,000 people.

More than 8,900 homes and other buildings burned to the ground in and around Paradise, and an estimated 50,000 people remained under evacuation orders in the area.

Adding to the misery of some survivors was an outbreak of norovirus, a highly contagious gastrointestinal illness, at a shelter housing about 200 evacuees in the nearby city of Chico.

Public health agency spokeswoman Lisa Almaguer said at least 20 people may have caught the virus.

The footprint of the 6-day-old fire grew to 135,000 acres (55,000 hectares) as of Wednesday, even as diminished winds and rising humidity helped firefighters shore up containment lines around more than a third of the perimeter.

Still, the ghostly expanse of empty lots covered in ash and strewn with twisted wreckage and debris made a strong impression on Governor Jerry Brown, US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and other officials who toured the devastation on Wednesday.

"This is one of the worst disasters I've seen in my career, hands down," Brock Long, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told reporters in Chico.

"It looks like a war zone. It is a war zone," Brown said.

NO FINGER POINTING

After visiting some of California's earlier wildfire zones in August, Zinke blamed "gross mismanagement of forests" because of timber harvest restrictions that he said were supported by "environmental terrorist groups."

But pressed by reporters on Wednesday, Zinke demurred. "Now is really not the time to point fingers," he said. "It is a time for America to stand together."

The blaze, fueled by thick, drought-desiccated scrub, has capped 2 back-to-back catastrophic wildfire seasons in California that scientists largely attribute to prolonged drought they say is symptomatic of climate change.

Lawyers for some of the victims claimed in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday that lax equipment maintenance by an electric utility was the proximate cause of the fire, which officially remains under investigation.

The Butte County disaster coincided with a flurry of blazes in Southern California, most notably the Woolsey Fire, which has killed at least 2 people, destroyed more than 500 structures and displaced about 200,000 people in the mountains and foothills near the Malibu coast west of Los Angeles.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said the body of a possible third victim was found there in a burned-out dwelling. Cal Fire officials said that blaze was 52 percent contained as of Wednesday night.

In Butte County, the search for more human remains kicked into high gear as a National Guard contingent of 50 military police officers joined dozens of search-and-recovery workers and at least 22 cadaver dogs, Sheriff Kory Honea said.

The remains of 8 more fire victims were found on Wednesday, raising the official number of fatalities to 56 - far exceeding the previous record from a single wildfire in California history - 29 people killed by the Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles in 1933.

The Camp Fire also stands as 1 of the deadliest US wildfires since the turn of the last century. More than 80 people perished in the Big Burn firestorm that swept the Northern Rockies in August of 1910.

TRACKING THE MISSING

Butte County Sheriff's spokeswoman Megan McMann said the list of 130 missing would fluctuate from day to day as more names are added and others are removed, either because they turn up safe or end up identified among the dead.

Sheriff Honea invited relatives of the missing to provide DNA samples to compare against samples taken from newly recovered remains in hopes of speeding up identification of the dead. But he acknowledged it was possible some of the missing might never be found.

Authorities attributed the magnitude of casualties to the staggering speed with which the fire struck Paradise. Wind-driven flames roared through town so swiftly that residents were forced to flee for their lives. Some victims were found in or around the burned-out wreckage of their vehicles.

Anna Dise, a resident of Butte Creek Canyon west of Paradise, told KRCR TV her father, Gordon Dise, 66, died when he ran back inside to gather belongings and their house collapsed on him.

Dise said she could not flee in her car because the tires had melted. To survive, she hid overnight in a neighbor's pond with her dogs.

"It was so fast," Dise recounted of the fire. "I didn't expect it to move so fast."

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Northern California wildfire kills 42 to rank as deadliest in state history

PARADISE, California - Search teams have recovered the remains of at least 42 people killed by a devastating wildfire that largely incinerated the town of Paradise in northern California, making it the deadliest single wildland blaze in state history, authorities said on Monday.

The latest death toll, up from 29 tallied over the weekend, was announced by Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea at an evening news conference in the nearby city of Chico after authorities located the remains of 13 additional victims from a blaze dubbed the Camp Fire.

That fire already ranked as the most destructive on record in California, having leveled more than 7,100 homes and other buildings since it erupted on Thursday in the Sierra foothills of Butte County, about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco.

Honea said the number of people listed as missing in the disaster remained officially at 228, but added that his office had received more than 1,500 requests for "welfare checks" from people concerned about the fate of their loved ones. He said his office had managed to confirm the safety of the individuals in question in 231 of those cases so far.

More than 15,000 more structures remained listed as threatened on Monday in an area so thick with smoke that visibility was reduced in some places to less than half a mile.

The bulk of the destruction and loss of life occurred in and around the town of Paradise, where flames reduced most of the buildings to ash and charred rubble on Thursday night, just hours after the blaze erupted.

The 42 confirmed fatalities marks the largest loss of life ever from a single wildland fire in California, Honea said. It also far surpasses the all-time record number of deaths from a California wildfire - 29 in 1933 from the Griffith Park blaze in Los Angeles.

Authorities reported two more people perished over the weekend in a separate blaze, dubbed the Woolsey Fire, that has destroyed 370 structures and displaced some 200,000 people in the mountains and foothills near Southern California's Malibu coast, west of Los Angeles.

President Donald Trump on Monday approved a major disaster declaration for California at the request of Governor Jerry Brown, hastening the availability of federal emergency assistance to fire-stricken regions of the state.

The fires have spread with an erratic intensity that has strained resources and kept firefighters struggling to keep up with the flames while catching many residents by surprise.

The remains of some of the Camp Fire victims were found in burned-out vehicles that were overrun by walls of fire as evacuees tried to flee by car in panic, only to be trapped in deadly knots of traffic gridlock on Thursday night.

"It was very scary," Mayor Jody Jones recounted of her family's own harrowing escape from their home as fire raged all around them.

"It took a long time to get out. There was fire on both sides of the car. You could feel the heat coming in through the car," she told CNN. Jones said her family is now living in their mobile home parked in a vacant lot.

Honea said authorities have brought in 13 special search-and-recovery teams to seek out any further victims from the Camp Fire, and have requested additional cadaver-dog crews to assist in the search for human remains.

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Hell in Paradise: fire crews in grim search for California's dead

PARADISE, United States - Search teams scoured the carnage of California's most destructive ever wildfire for victims on Sunday, as the state-wide death toll rose to 26 with high winds hampering the effort to rescue property and save lives.

Firefighters took advantage of a brief calm overnight to make headway against the multiple blazes, but conditions were expected to be hellish on Sunday with winds reaching as high as 70 miles (110 kilometers) an hour.

In fire zones north and south, acrid smoke blanketed the sky for miles, the sun barely visible. On the ground, cars caught in the blaze were reduced to mangled metal carcasses, while power lines were gnawed by the flames.

The largest inferno -- the so-called "Camp Fire" in the northern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains -- has destroyed 6,700 homes, business and other buildings in the town of Paradise, effectively wiping it off the map.

At least 23 people have lost their lives in and around the community of 27,000, according to an official count by authorities.

An AFP journalist in Magalia, a 10-mile drive north of Paradise, saw workers from a local mortuary team recover another body which was put into a blue bag and loaded onto a hearse.

Only two Californian wildfires have claimed more lives -- the most recent more than a quarter-century ago.

At the southern end of the state, where the "Woolsey Fire" is threatening mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity redoubt of Malibu, the death toll has been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway.

Los Angeles County Fire chief Daryl Osby told reporters of his gratitude to firefighters "who've done all they could do save tens of thousands of people's lives and thousands of people's homes."

'NEW NORMAL'

Rescuers spent Saturday collecting bodies around Paradise and placing them in a black hearse. Charred body parts were transported by bucket, while intact remains were carried in body bags.

At the Holly Hills Mobile Estate the mobile homes had been reduced to smoldering piles of debris. Yellow police tape delineated spots that were tagged "Doe C" and "Doe D," a grim marker of the bodies that had recently been removed.

Locals fled the danger, but police told AFP some farmers returned to check on their cattle.

Fanned by strong winds, the "Camp Fire" has so far scorched 109,000 acres (45,000 hectares) and is 25 percent contained, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said. So far, three of the more than 4,000 firefighters deployed have been injured.

They estimate they will need three weeks to fully contain the blaze.

Evacuation orders have been issued to more than 250,000 people across California, with authorities urging residents not to ignore warnings to flee.

"We're entering a new normal. Things are not the way they were 10 years ago," Ventura County Fire Department Chief Mark Lawrenson said.

"The rate of spread is exponentially more than it used to be. Please heed evacuation warnings. Do not stay in your homes to try to defend them."

'DANGEROUSLY WRONG'

Almost 6,000 miles away, President Donald Trump, in France for World War I commemorations, drew fierce criticism for an unsympathetic reaction to the devastation.

"There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor," Trump tweeted, threatening to withdraw federal support.

Brian Rice, the head of the California Professional Firefighters, slammed the tweet as "ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines."

He said the president's claim that forest policies were mismanaged "is dangerously wrong."

The tweet also drew political criticism. Republican Senator Cory Gardner told ABC News on Sunday: "I don't think it's appropriate to threaten funding.

"That's not going to happen. Funding will be available. It always is available to our people wherever they are, whatever disaster they are facing."

MALIBU MANSIONS IN FLAMES

In southern California, the "Woolsey Fire" engulfed parts of Thousand Oaks, where the community is still shell-shocked after a Marine Corps veteran shot dead 12 people in a country music bar on Wednesday.

It has consumed around 83,000 acres, destroyed at least 177 buildings and was ten percent contained, Cal Fire said Sunday.

The blaze reached the Paramount Ranch, destroying sets used for hundreds of productions including HBO'S sci-fi western "Westworld," network officials said.

Keegan Gibbs, 33, was crushed to find his childhood Malibu home had been consumed by flames.

"Malibu is a really small community and gets a bad rap for being this kind of elitist, snobby place, and it's exactly the opposite," Gibbs told the Los Angeles Times.

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Death toll from California fires rises to 10

The toll from the California wildfires rose to 10 Thursday after a heavy equipment mechanic assigned to the Carr Fire was killed in a road accident, authorities said.

The Carr Fire, near the city of Redding, has proved to be the deadliest of nearly 20 major fires raging across the state, having previously claimed seven lives, including two firefighters.

Two other people have died in the Ferguson Fire, which has forced the partial closure of Yosemite National Park.

"We are saddened to report the death of a CAL FIRE heavy equipment mechanic from the Butte Unit assigned to the Carr Fire," Cal Fire, the state's department of forestry and fire protection, said.

"He was killed early this morning as the result of a traffic accident on Highway 99 in Tehama County," it said.

The Carr Fire is 48 percent contained but has burned through 177,450 since it ignited July 23.

The biggest fire currently is the Mendocino Complex fire, which actually consists of two big fires -- the Ranch Fire and the River Fire -- that together have consumed more than 300,000 acres.

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California's raging wildfires cause another death

CLEARLAKE OAKS, United States - California's deadly Carr wildfire -- now the state's sixth most destructive -- has claimed another life with a power linesman killed on the job its seventh fatality, officials said Sunday.

The Carr Fire, located some 200 miles (322 kilometers) north of San Francisco, is still growing, CalFire said Sunday.

Its intensity was so great at one point, that it generated a tornado-like whirl of fire -- as well as its own weather system.

PG&E power company identified the worker Sunday as Jairus Ayeta, who was killed in a remote area of Shasta county where crews were working to restore electricity.

"The safety of our employees and our customers is PG&E's top priority. Our thoughts and prayers are with our fallen team member, his family and our extended team," the company said in a statement.

"We are working with law enforcement to investigate the circumstances of the incident," it added.

The Carr Fire has scorched 154,524 acres (62,534 hectares) of land since July 23, when authorities say it was triggered by the "mechanical failure of a vehicle" that caused sparks to fly in tinderbox-dry conditions.

The fire has also razed more than 1,600 buildings, including some 1,000 homes, making it the sixth most destructive blaze in the history of the fire-prone western state, state officials say.

More than 4,200 firefighters have been deployed to battle the conflagration but they have only succeeded in containing 41 percent of it so far.

Other fires raging in the state include the Mendocino Complex, comprised of two blazes: the River Fire and the Ranch Fire.

Several thousand people have been evacuated as the fires swept across the state, although some have been given permission in recent days to return to their homes.

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California’s largest wildfire surges overnight in West Coast

A fast-growing California wildfire that has already forced thousands to flee their homes and shut down a large national park surged overnight into Saturday, as fatigued firefighters battled gusting winds.

The blaze in Mendocino County, about 145 km north of San Francisco, had spread to cover a total of 81,500 hectares by early Saturday, after increasing more than 25 percent in size from Friday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said. It was 34 percent contained.

The Mendocino Complex Fire is now the state's largest fire at more than two-thirds the size of sprawling Los Angeles, and has forced the evacuation of nearly 16,000 residents and destroyed more than 100 structures.

It has swelled to become larger than the deadly Carr Fire, about 160 km to the northeast, which has killed at least six people and destroyed more than 1,500 homes, businesses and other structures.

Firefighters have managed to contain 41 percent of that blaze and authorities are allowing some people who had evacuated to return, Cal Fire said.

Both areas remained under a "red flag warning" issued by the National Weather Service for strong winds, low relative humidity and temperatures topping 32 degrees Celsius, all conditions that can drive the growth of wildfires.

This year's California wildfire season has been more destructive than in years past, burning about 117,300 hectares, more than double the five-year average over that same period, according to Cal Fire.

In total, 14 states are currently reporting large fires. Most are in other western states but wildfires have also struck Texas and Florida, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

So far this year, fires have blackened 4.9 million acres throughout the United States, significantly higher than the 10-year average, according to the center.

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1 killed in raging California wildfire as residents race to flee

One person was killed in a raging, out-of-control wildfire that sent residents racing to flee a northern California city on Friday as flames burned homes and businesses and knocked out power, fire officials said.

A bulldozer operator was killed in the so-called Carr Fire, a blaze in Shasta County, which has tripled in size in the last 2 days to 28,000 acres (11,300 hectares), the state's forestry and fire protection department said.

The blaze has crossed the Sacramento River and now threatens hundreds of homes on the western fringes of the city of Redding, the Sacramento Bee said.

"The fire is moving so fast that law enforcement is doing evacuations as fast as we can. There have been some injuries to civilians and firefighters," California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Scott McLean told the newspaper.

"It’s way too dynamic and burning quickly."

Local and state fire officials were not available to confirm details of injuries.

Roads out of the city of 90,000 people were jammed with motorists trying to escape the flames, social media postings showed.

Multiple power outages were reported, the city said on its website, adding that the electric utility was shutting off power in its northern areas. 

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California wildfire becomes state's 3rd-largest, more evacuate

VENTURA - A raging California wildfire became the state's third-largest on record on Saturday as fresh evacuations were ordered amid a resurgence of the harsh winds that have fueled the deadly blaze threatening to scorch 18,000 structures.

The so-called Thomas Fire has already destroyed more than 1,000 structures, including about 750 homes, in Southern California communities since erupting on Dec. 4, state fire officials said.

More than 8,000 personnel using nearly 1,000 engines and 32 helicopters were fighting the blaze that has become the seventh most destructive in the state's history, they said.

"This fire isn't letting up," the California Governor's Office for Emergency Management said on its Twitter feed. "Tough terrain, dry conditions, single-digit humidity, ripping winds make for difficult conditions this weekend."

A new evacuation order was issued for parts of Santa Barbara County on Saturday as high winds whipped the fire through bone-dry terrain. The blaze is chewing up tall grass and brush as it spreads along the scenic Pacific Coast.

Mandatory evacuations were already in place in several Santa Barbara County communities, including Carpinteria and Montecito, and parts of Ventura County. An evacuation order for the city of Ventura, which was hit hard in the first days of the fire, was lifted on Saturday morning.

The Thomas Fire is only 40 percent contained, officials said. Among the places being threatened include the wealthy enclave of Montecito just outside the coastal city of Santa Barbara.

ROAR OF FIRE

The 13 days of shifting winds and evacuations have taken their toll on a weary population.

Paul Pineda, who lives in Fillmore, about 55 miles (90 kms)northwest of Los Angeles and on the eastern flank of the fire, said he will flee if the blaze gets too close.

"It's pretty crazy. Went to sleep last night about midnight and then woke up to the roar of this fire coming through about 3 a.m." Pineda said.

The wildfires forced many schools to close for days, shut roads and drove hundreds of thousands from their homes. They were also responsible for poor air quality throughout Southern California.

The cost of fighting the blaze that was about 40 miles (65 km) wide and 20 miles long has already reached $104 million, authorities said.

For California, this year has been unprecedented in terms of structures lost and the size of the wildfires, officials said. Five of 20 most destructive fires in recorded history ravaged the state in 2017, according to Cal Fire.

The vast landscape charred by the blaze, centered fewer than 100 miles (160 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, reached 259,000 acres (104,800 hectares) early on Saturday. That surpassed the 257,314 acres (104,131 hectares) that California's Rim Fire, which had been the state's third-largest on record, destroyed in 2013, authorities said.

The hot Santa Ana winds have propelled the fire's expansion, at times sending embers far ahead of its main flank. They were forecast to remain strong through Saturday evening in the Santa Barbara County mountains, the National Weather Service warned. Gusts of up to 40 miles per hour (64 km/h) were expected.

From Saturday night through Sunday evening, the winds could lash neighboring Ventura County, the Weather Service said.

Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson, 32, died on Thursday while battling the flames near the Ventura County community of Fillmore. Fire officials said Iverson, the blaze's first fatality, left behind a pregnant wife and 2-year-old daughter.

The Thomas Fire was one of several major blazes that broke out in Southern California this month, although the others have been contained.

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New evacuations ordered as winds reinvigorate California wildfire

VENTURA - California's largest wildfire pushed toward prosperous coastal cities on Sunday, prompting a new wave of evacuations as firefighters struggled to curb its destructive power with the gusty winds that have fueled fires for nearly a week.

Authorities ordered residents in parts of Carpinteria and Montecito to evacuate early on Sunday as the Thomas Fire edged closer to the city of Santa Barbara, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Los Angeles.

The blaze, the worst of six major fires in Southern California in the last week, has already blackened 173,000 acres (62,726 hectares), consumed hundreds of structures and left nearly 90,000 homes and businesses in the area without power.

The combination of Santa Ana winds and rugged terrain in the mountains that run through Santa Barbara and Ventura counties have hampered firefighting efforts, and officials said the Thomas Fire was only 15 percent contained on Sunday.

The National Weather Service said winds of up to 55 miles (88 km) per hour were expected on Sunday, up from top speeds of 40 miles per hour on Saturday.

The fires raging across Southern California have forced the evacuation of some 200,000 people and destroyed nearly 800 structures.

Governor Jerry Brown, who surveyed the devastation in Ventura on Saturday, said the ferocious fires in December may be "the new normal" for the state, with climate change exacerbating the drought conditions that stoke such blazes.

At the Ventura County Fairgrounds, evacuees slept in makeshift beds while rescued horses were sheltered in stables. A steady stream of rescue workers streamed in and out of the entrance early on Sunday.

Peggy Scissons, 78, arrived at the shelter with her dog last Wednesday, after residents of her mobile home park were forced to leave. She has not yet found out whether her home is standing.

"I don't know what's gonna happen next or whether I'll be able to go home," she said. "It would be one thing if I were 40 or 50, but I'm 78. What the heck do I do?"

James Brown, 57, who retired from Washington State's forestry service and has lived in Ventura for a year, was forced to leave his house along with his wife last week because both have breathing problems.

"It brought back old memories, fighting forest fires," said Brown, who is in a wheelchair. "We knew a fire was coming, but we didn't know it would be this bad."

Thus far, the fires have been blamed for a single death, after a 70-year-old woman who died Wednesday in a car accident as she attempted to flee the flames in Ventura County. Scores of horses have died, including at least 46 at a thoroughbred training facility.

Some of the other fires, in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, have been largely controlled by the thousands of firefighters on the ground this week.

Both the Creek and Rye fires in Los Angeles County were 90 percent contained by Sunday morning, officials said, while the Skirball Fire in Los Angeles' Bel Air neighborhood was 75 percent contained.

North of San Diego, the 4,100-acre Lilac Fire was 60 percent contained by Sunday.

Brown issued emergency proclamations last week for Santa Barbara, San Diego, Los Angeles and Ventura counties, freeing up additional resources to fight the infernos.

President Donald Trump issued a federal proclamation that enabled agencies to coordinate relief efforts.

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Southern California fires force 200,000 people to flee

FARIA BEACH, CALIFORNIA - Wildfires roared through canyons, hillsides and residential areas in densely populated Southern California for a fourth day on Thursday as gusting winds hampered efforts to quell the flames.

Some 200,000 people have evacuated ahead of the fires, which have destroyed hundreds of homes and forced hundreds of Los Angeles-area schools to close.

Authorities feared the 4 major fires - ranging from Los Angeles up the Pacific coast to Santa Barbara County - would be whipped up by the region's notorious westward Santa Ana winds that could reach hurricane strength.

The winds, which blow in hot and dry from the California desert, could reach 75 miles per hour (120 km per hour) on Thursday and create "extreme fire danger," according to an alert sent by the countywide emergency system in Los Angeles. The National Weather Service said high winds were expected to continue at least through Saturday.

The fires, which broke out on Monday and Tuesday, have reached into the wealthy enclave of Bel-Air on Los Angeles' West Side. Some major highways in the densely populated area were intermittently closed.

North of San Diego, another blaze called the Lilac Fire grew from about 10 acres to between 100 and 150 acres in less than an hour, destroying two structures and prompting evacuations, the local CAL FIRE agency reported.

No civilian casualties or fatalities have been reported from the blazes but three firefighters were injured, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

Firefighters and helicopters sprayed and dumped bucketloads of water to try to contain the flames against a hellish backdrop of flaming mountains and walls of smoke.

About 100 firefighters fended off flames in the seaside enclave of Faria Beach, caught between burning mountains and the Pacific Ocean, northwest of Ventura. Fires spread down the smoking hills, jumping the heavily used U.S. 101 highway, and headed toward clusters of beach houses. Firefighters lined up along a railroad track, the last barrier from the flames.

Surrounded by strong winds and smoke, Songsri Kesonchampa aimed a garden hose at a large pine tree between her Feria Beach house and the fire, attempting to fend off disaster.

“If this tree catches fire, the strong wind will blow the flames towards my house. I need to protect this tree,” she said.

“In the 10 years I’ve lived here, I have never seen anything like this,” she added. As she spoke, a sheriff’s car drove by, ordering residents to evacuate. “The fire is here. You must evacuate your homes right now,” an officer said over the loudspeaker.

Nearby, Ventura resident Shana Dalton was checking on her friends’ house. “One minute the flames were on the mountains and then next thing you know, they jumped the 101 and the train tracks and were right in front of us,” she said.

Because of the heavy smoke, the South Coast Air Quality Management District warned residents, especially the elderly, children, pregnant women and people with respiratory diseases, to stay indoors. Ventura County authorities said air quality in the Ojai Valley area was hazardous with "numbers ... off the charts."

The Thomas Fire, the largest in the area, continued its westward push on Thursday, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of Santa Barbara County residents and the closing of Highway 101 north of Ventura city. The fire has destroyed more than 150 homes and threatened thousands more in Ventura.

In the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, the Creek Fire destroyed at least 30 homes, blackened more than 12,000 acres (4,800 hectares) and forced the evacuation of 2,500 homes and a convalescent center.

Another blaze, the Rye Fire, threatened more than 5,000 homes and structures northwest of Los Angeles.

The Skirball Fire in Los Angeles has forced hundreds of residents in the wooded hills near the Bel-Air neighborhood to evacuate and charred more than 475 acres (192 hectares).

Skirball threatened media magnate Rupert Murdoch's Moraga Estate winery. The property was evacuated, with possible damage to some buildings, Murdoch said in a statement, but “We believe the winery and house are still intact."

The Los Angeles Police Department tweeted "LAPD Working to Save Every Californian, Pets Included" along with a photo of a police officer in a respirator rescuing a cat.

CLASSES CANCELED

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the country's second largest with more than 640,000 students, said it closed at least 265 of its nearly 1,100 schools. The University of California Santa Barbara canceled classes as well.

Dozens of schools also were closed in Ventura County, where the Thomas Fire has charred more than 96,000 acres (38,850 hectares). The school district, with nearly 17,000 students, hoped to reopen on Monday.

San Diego Gas & Electric said it was turning off power to customers in some mountain communities northeast of San Diego to lessen fire danger and warned the outage could last several days.

The fires are the second outbreak to ravage parts of California this autumn. The celebrated wine country in the northern part of the state was hit by wind-driven wildfires in October that killed at least 43 people, forced some 10,000 to flee their homes and consumed at least 245,000 acres (9,900 hectares) north of the San Francisco Bay area.

The California Department of Insurance said the northern California blazes caused insured losses of more than $9 billion.

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Wildfire burns homes, winery in L.A.'s posh Bel-Air neighborhood

LOS ANGELES - A wind-whipped wildfire raged on Wednesday into a wealthy Southern California neighborhood, destroying at least six homes, threatening hundreds more and scorching a building at a winery owned by billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

The so-called Skirball Fire, which erupted early on Wednesday morning as the latest in a rash of major blazes fueled by hot, dry Santa Ana winds, had burned about 150 acres near large estates in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Los Angeles by early afternoon and was only 5 percent contained.

Firefighters battled to save multimillion-dollar homes in the path of the flames, which also forced the closure of the San Diego (405) Freeway in both directions, and warned that if the winds picked up again in the evening the situation could become even more dire.

"We are expecting some extreme wind behavior this evening," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby told reporters at an afternoon news conference.

Murdoch's winery, Moraga Vineyards, was evacuated on Wednesday morning as the fire descended on the grounds, a spokeswoman said. Later a structure on the property was seen on fire as crews worked to extinguish the flames.

The new fire also prompted the nearby Getty Center museum to close the doors at its hilltop campus to prevent damage to its world-class art collection.

The Skirball Fire in the area south of scenic Mulholland Drive and north of Sunset Boulevard is just one of several major out-of-control brush fires that have sprung up in Southern California since Monday, when Santa Ana wind conditions set in.

In Ventura, some 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Los Angeles, more than 1,000 firefighters battled the largest, the Thomas Fire, which has already destroyed more than 150 homes and threatened thousands more.

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, freeing state funds and resources to assist firefighters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it approved grants to help cover the cost of emergency work for the Thomas Fire and two others.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his thoughts and prayers were with everyone in the path of the wildfires.

"I encourage everyone to heed the advice and orders of local and state officials," Trump wrote on Twitter. "THANK YOU to all First Responders for your incredible work."

Although no casualties have been reported, the fires have forced mass evacuations, cancellation of classes at dozens of schools and resulted in the loss of power at more than 250,000 homes in Ventura County.

In the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, the Creek Fire destroyed at least 30 homes, blackened more than 11,000 acres and forced the evacuation of 2,500 homes and a convalescent center north of Interstate 210 on Tuesday.

Three firefighters were injured and hospitalized in stable condition, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

The Santa Ana winds, which blow westward from the California desert, were forecast to top out at 70 miles per hour (115 km per hour) on Wednesday and remain strong through the week.

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California 'horror' fires kill at least 38, deadliest in state history

SANTA ROSA, California - Fast-moving fires spread by shifting winds forced thousands more Californians to evacuate their homes on Saturday as the death toll from the deadliest blaze recorded in the state's history rose to at least 38, with hundreds of people still missing.


About 10,000 firefighters supported by air tankers and helicopters overhead were battling 16 major wildfires, some encompassing several smaller merged blazes, in areas north of San Francisco that have consumed nearly 214,000 acres (86,000 hectares) over seven days, or roughly 334 square miles (865 sq km) - an area larger than New York City.


The 38 confirmed fatalities, including 20 in Sonoma County, already make it the deadliest fire event in California history.

Some 100,000 people have been forced from their homes, including 3,000 evacuated on Saturday from the city of Santa Rosa, about 50 miles (80 km) north of San Francisco, and another 250 from nearby Sonoma city.

"This is truly one of the greatest tragedies that California has ever faced. The devastation is just unbelievable. It is a horror that no one could have imagined," California Governor Jerry Brown told a news conference in Santa Rosa.

The fires have damaged or destroyed about 5,700 structures, reducing homes and businesses to ash. The fires' death toll surpassed the 29 deaths from the Griffith Park fire of 1933 in Los Angeles.

"It's an unwieldy beast right now," fire information officer Dennis Rein said at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, the main staging area for the so-called Nuns Fire in Sonoma County, a world-renowned wine-producing region.

At least a dozen Napa Valley and Sonoma County wineries were damaged or destroyed, throwing the state's wine industry and related tourism into disarray.

For the picturesque Napa Valley town of Calistoga, the winds were a double-edged sword. The town was spared by hazardous winds when they shifted, Mayor Chris Canning said, though he warned a resurgence could pose a new threat.

The town of roughly 5,000 people had been evacuated, he said.

Firefighters from states including Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada have joined crews from California to battle the blazes.

From the air, some 70 helicopters and large aircraft including a 747, two DC-10s and about a dozen air tankers doused flames across the sprawling affected area with fire retardant, officials said.

On the ground, prison inmates were helping firefighters - sometimes digging lines to help contain fires, other times preparing meals at command centers, always watched over by guard.

In an area largely dependent on immigrant farm labor, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they would temporarily suspend routine operations during the emergency, "except in the event of a serious criminal presenting a public safety threat," spokesman James Schwab said in a statement.

SHIFTING WINDS

Ground crews gained on the wildfires on Friday, but drier weather and fast-shifting winds complicated efforts on Saturday, sparking a large new wildfire in Lake County, officials said.

The Nuns Fire, which had killed at least 1 person, was only 10 percent contained with winds threatening more residential areas, Cal Fire spokesman Antonio Negrete said.

But the more deadly Tubbs Fire, which killed at least 17 people in Sonoma County, was 44 percent contained, which officials considered a victory.

"It's cautious optimism, but it's optimism," Negrete said of the Tubbs Fire.

Cal Fire had estimated the fires would be contained by Oct. 20, but Rein said they may need to revise that date because of the winds that kicked up.

US Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, at the news conference with the governor in Santa Rosa pledged more federal aid to the region to help it through the devastation.

Whole neighborhoods of Santa Rosa have been reduced to landscapes of ash, smoldering debris and burned-out vehicles.

Some victims were asleep when flames engulfed their homes, and many survivors had only minutes to flee.

As parts of Santa Rosa were devastated, Calistoga, about 12 miles (20 km) to the northeast, faced hazardous winds that were forecast to push the Tubbs Fire toward town.

Mayor Canning said the shifting winds kept the flames at least 2 miles (3.2 km) from the city limit.

"If the winds shift and come back again, that's a big concern," he said in a telephone interview.

All but 12 of the city's 5,200 people heeded evacuation orders and left, Canning said.

"Nobody was confrontational," Canning said. "When the police or firefighters knocked on doors, most people were already ready to go with their bags packed."

With 235 people still missing on Saturday in Sonoma County alone, and rubble from thousands of incinerated dwellings yet to be searched, authorities have said the number of fatalities from the North Bay fires would likely climb.

The year's wildfire season is one of the worst in history in the United States, with nearly 8.6 million acres (3.5 million hectares) burned, just behind 2012, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Hundreds missing, 24 dead in California wildfires

SONOMA - Firefighters began to gain ground on Thursday against the spread of wildfires that have killed at least 24 people in Northern California and left hundreds missing in the pandemonium of mass evacuations in the heart of the state's wine country.

A brief resurgence of dry, gusty winds threatened to push flames into the Napa Valley town of Calistoga, whose 5,000-plus residents were ordered from their homes on Wednesday night as conditions worsened and fire crept closer.


Calistoga Mayor Chris Canning said anyone refusing to heed the mandatory evacuation would be left to fend for themselves if fire approached, warning on Thursday: "You are on your own."

Still, extreme wind conditions that had been forecast for Wednesday night and early Thursday failed to materialize, giving crews a chance to begin carving containment lines around the perimeter.

"Overall, we are definitely making progress," said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), told Reuters, adding that the situation was less dire than earlier in the week.

Nearly two dozen blazes spanning eight counties have raged largely unchecked since igniting on Sunday night, scorching more than 190,000 acres (77,000 hectares) - an area nearly the size of New York City - and destroying at least 3,500 homes and other buildings.

Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to panoramas of ash, smoldering ruins, charred trees and burned-out cars by a series of firestorms that rank among the deadliest and most destructive in California's history.

The official cause of the disaster was under investigation, but power lines knocked down by gale-force winds may have sparked the conflagration.

Twenty-four people, all civilians, have been confirmed dead, the greatest loss of life from a California wildfire event since 1991, and authorities said the death toll could climb higher. Fire officials have said some of the victims were asleep when the fast-moving fires engulfed their homes before they could escape.

"We have found bodies that were completely intact, and we have found bodies that were no more than ash and bone," Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano told reporters.

As many as 900 missing-persons reports had been filed in Sonoma County alone, although 437 have since turned up safe, Giordano said.

It remained unclear how many of the 463 still listed as unaccounted for might be actual fire victims rather than evacuees who failed to alert authorities after fleeing their homes, he said.

"The best we can pray for is that they haven't checked in," emergency operations spokeswoman Jennifer Larocque told Reuters.

The fiercest of the blazes, the so-called Tubbs fire, accounted for 14 of the fatalities, all in Sonoma County, making it the deadliest single blaze since 2003, according to state data.

SMOKE, ASH IN BAY AREA

About 25,000 people remained displaced on Wednesday as the fires belched smoke that drifted over the San Francisco Bay area, about 50 miles to the south, where visibility was shrouded in haze and automobiles were coated with ash.

The National Weather Service warned on Thursday morning of persistent "critical fire weather conditions" in the fire zone for the next three days, with no rain expected and dry winds from the north with gusts upward of 35 miles per hour (55 kph).

The Tubbs fire on Thursday was within 2 miles (3 km) of Calistoga, which had appeared to be in the path of advancing flames but was spared on the first night of the fires.

Whether the town burns "is going to depend on the wind," Calistoga's Fire Chief Steve Campbell told Reuters early on Thursday. "High winds are predicted but we have not received them yet."

New evacuations also were issued in Sonoma County late on Wednesday for parts of Santa Rosa, the largest city in the wine-producing region, and Geyserville, an unincorporated town of 800 people.

While the cause of the fires have not been determined, they are thought to have been sparked by power lines toppled by gale-force winds and fanned by arid winds that blew into Northern California toward the Pacific on Sunday night.

Wildfires have damaged or demolished at least 13 Napa Valley wineries, a vintners' trade group said on Tuesday.

The confirmed death toll from the spate of fires stood at just one less than the 25 lives lost when a firestorm swept the Oakland Hills in October 1991.

In addition to high winds, the fires have been stoked by an abundance of thick brush left ready to burn by a dry, hot summer.

California Governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in several northern counties, as well as in Orange County in Southern California, where a fire in Anaheim destroyed 15 structures and damaged 12 earlier in the week.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Fast-spreading wildfire north of Los Angeles prompts evacuations

LOS ANGELES - Firefighters struggled on Sunday to contain a fast-spreading wildfire that killed at least one person, destroyed 18 homes, closed a highway and forced hundreds of evacuations in the drought-parched canyons north of Los Angeles.

The Sand Fire grew overnight to 22,000 acres (8,900 hectares), or more than 34 square miles (88 square km), fueled by high winds and parched conditions after years of drought.

It was threatening a string of small communities near Santa Clarita, just outside the Angeles National Forest, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

A 10,262-acre (4,155-hectare) fire was also burning in a coastal area of Monterey County, 300 miles (480 km) northwest of Santa Clarita, prompting authorities to expand evacuation orders to several communities on Sunday afternoon, said Cal Fire spokeswoman Amber Anderson.

One person suffered non-life-threatening injuries and one structure was destroyed, Anderson said.

The Santa Clarita-area fire, first reported on Friday afternoon, has forced at least 1,500 residents to evacuate their homes and destroyed at least 18 homes, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said in a statement.

All the affected communities, about 40 miles (65 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, are in or around the San Gabriel Mountains. The area is dotted with multimillion-dollar homes.

Some 100 commercial buildings in the path of the fire are under mandatory evacuation orders, fire officials said.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department tweeted on Sunday afternoon that an "unexpected wind event" forced officials to rescind a plan to allow residents to re-enter certain areas. "All evacuations will remain in place," the department said.

The California Highway Patrol tweeted that the 14 Freeway was closed to traffic in both directions because of the fire threat.

The remains of an unidentified person were found late on Saturday inside a charred vehicle in the path of the blaze. The exact cause of death had not been immediately determined, fire officials said.

They added that they expected extreme heat, strong winds and parched rugged terrain to continue to hamper the efforts of the more than 1,600 firefighters battling the blaze.

The wildfire was only 10 percent contained on Sunday and the cause of was still under investigation.

"This is the fifth year of an ongoing drought, so we have very extreme fire behavior," Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Daryl Osby said at a news conference on Sunday afternoon. "These are not normal times."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

California wildfire burns 1,200 acres northwest of Los Angeles, closes highway

VENTURA, California - A wildfire northwest of Los Angeles burned about 1,200 acres of land, forced the closure of parts of a major highway and led to evacuations on Saturday, fire officials said.

More than 600 firefighters battled the blaze in the Solimar Beach area of Ventura County, and parts of U.S. Highway 101 were closed for part of the day, county fire department officials told a news conference.

No injuries have been reported, fire officials said. No structures have been damaged by the fire, but nearby Union Pacific rail lines were closed for a period and the fire is a threat to oil, gas and power lines.

The northbound side of the highway, a major roadway in the region, reopened around 2 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET) according to state transportation officials, and the southbound side was moving 30 minutes later according to a Reuters witness.

At 1:30 p.m. local time, an Amtrak train heading north and filled with passengers passed near Solimar Beach, according to the same Reuters witness.

"Even if we do open up the roadways, it's still not a contained fire," Ventura County Fire Department Chief Norm Plott told reporters earlier in the day. "It's a very dynamic fire. We're not quite out of the woods yet."

The fire is less than 10-percent contained and it will take at least three days to get it under control, fire officials said. The cause of the fire was still under investigation.

Helicopters and fixed-wing tankers were helping to battle the blaze with water drops.

Fire officials had earlier reported that parts of the Pacific Coast highway also were closed, but a fire department spokeswoman said only a portion that overlaps the 101 was closed. Ventura is about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Los Angeles.

The fire started at around 11 p.m. local time on Friday near Ventura, and strong winds as high as 50 miles per hour and dry vegetation caused it to grow rapidly, fire officials said.

At around 2 a.m. local time on Saturday in a video posted on Facebook, Ventura County Fire Department Captain Steve Kaufman said the fire was near the beach, "bumping up against the roadway. We're getting a bunch of embers in Solimar east."

The Solimar Beach community, with 50 to 60 homes, and a nearby campground were under a mandatory evacuation order, while a voluntary one had been issued for the nearby Faria Beach community, where there are 30 to 40 homes, fire officials said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Woman killed, 400 homes destroyed by California wildfire

LAKEPORT, California - A Northern California wildfire ranked as the most destructive to hit the drought-stricken U.S. West this year has killed a woman and burned some 400 homes to the ground, fire officials said on Monday, and they expect the property toll to climb.

The so-called Valley Fire erupted on Saturday and spread quickly to a cluster of small communities in the hills and valleys north of Napa County's wine-producing region, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents.

An elderly, disabled woman who was unable to flee her home died in the fire as flames consumed the building on Saturday evening, Lake County Sheriff's spokesman Lieutenant Steve Brooks said.

Evacuated residents recounted chaotic ordeals of having to flee their homes through gauntlets of flame, and some 9,000 structures remained threatened as darkness fell on Monday evening, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

"That whole place was ablaze. It was like Armageddon," said Steve Johnson, a 37-year-old construction worker from Southern California who was visiting his mother in the fire-ravaged community of Hidden Valley Lake. "We were literally driving through the flames."

Johnson and his mother safely escaped and spent Sunday night at a high school gymnasium converted into an evacuation center.

By Monday evening, the blaze had blackened 62,000 acres (24,690 hectares) of tinder-dry forests, brush and grasslands, and was only about 10 percent contained, according to Cal Fire.

About 40,000 acres (16,190 hectares) of the landscape were consumed in the first 12 hours of the fire at the peak of its intensity on Saturday and early Sunday, stoked by high winds.

Fire officials described the rapid initial rate of spread as nearly unprecedented, a consequence of vegetation desiccated by four years of drought and weeks of extreme summer heat.

Four firefighters were hospitalized with second-degree burns in the early hours of the blaze on Saturday.

By Monday night more than 1,400 firefighters were battling the flames, one of 12 major wildfires across the state during an intense fire season.

SCENES OF DEVASTATION

The communities of Cobb, Middletown, Hidden Valley Lake and the Harbin Hot Springs resort - located about 50 miles (80 km) west of Sacramento, the state capital - were reported to be hardest hit by the fire.

Reuters video footage from Middletown, a village of about 1,500 residents, showed a smoking, devastated scene of burned-out vehicles, twisted, blackened debris and charred foundations of buildings that had been reduced to ash. Roughly half of the town was leveled.

The carcass of a horse was seen lying on the shoulder of the road between Cobb and Middletown, a stretch of highway where miles of houses were laid to waste on both sides.

"We were trying to get out. We were trying to hook up our trailer and all of a sudden, two houses up I see this big wall of pink and red and gray," said Carol Ulrich of Middletown. "So we just dropped everything and left. I didn't even get my purse, nothing. We just drove away and left our trailer and everything."

Janet Mondragon of Middletown, appeared close to tears as she watched videotaped footage of her home in flames.

"We have nothing, absolutely nothing," she said. "What can I tell you? We are staying in a hotel in Santa Rosa, but we're going to have to start life over. There is nothing, absolutely nothing."

Cal Fire on Monday reported that some 1,000 structures had been lost, at least 400 of them homes. Mark Ghilarducci, Director of the state's Office of Emergency Services, told reporters on Monday some 13,000 people had been displaced.

Governor Jerry Brown, who also spoke at the news conference, said climate change would continue to worsen fire conditions.

That tally ranks as the greatest loss of property from a single blaze in California this season, or among the scores of wildfires that have ravaged the drought-stricken western United States so far this summer, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.

The property toll is expected to rise as damage-assessment teams reach areas of the fire zone that have yet to be surveyed, but no additional communities were under immediate threat on Monday, Smith said.

The Valley Fire also damaged the cooling towers at five of the 14 steam-generating plants operated by Texas-based Calpine Corp at a sprawling geothermal field straddling the Sonoma-Lake county border, company spokesman Brett Kerr said.

A separate blaze raging since Wednesday in the western Sierras has destroyed 135 homes and 79 outbuildings and was threatening about 6,400 structures, with some 10,000 people displaced there too, officials said.

In Oregon, meanwhile, Governor Kate Brown invoked the state's so-called Emergency Conflagration Act on Monday, mobilizing additional resources as a fast-growing wildfire threatened 275 homes in a rural area of the state.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com