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At least nine dead as fire incinerates northern California town

Evacuation orders included the entire city of Malibu, which is home to 13,000, among them some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

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California Wildfires

A powerful wildfire in northern California incinerated most of a town of about 30,000 people, leaving at least nine dead in what quickly grew into the state’s most destructive fire in at least a century.

Only a day after it began, the blaze near the town of Paradise had grown to nearly 140 square miles and destroyed more than 6,700 structures — almost all of them homes — and was burning completely out of control.

“There was really no firefight involved,” Captain Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said, explaining that crews gave up attacking the flames and instead helped people get out alive.

“These firefighters were in the rescue mode all day yesterday.”

With fires also burning in Southern California, state officials put the total number of people forced from their homes at about 250,000

Evacuation orders included the entire city of Malibu, which is home to 13,000, among them some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration providing federal funds for Butte, Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

When Paradise was evacuated, the order set off a desperate exodus in which many motorists got stuck in gridlocked traffic and abandoned their vehicles to flee on foot.

People reported seeing much of the community go up in flames, including homes, supermarkets, businesses, restaurants, schools and a retirement centre.

Rural areas fared little better. Many homes have propane tanks that were exploding amid the flames.

“They were going off like bombs,” said Karen Auday, who escaped to a nearby town.

California Wildfires
A home burns in the Calabasas section of Los Angeles (Mark J Terrill/AP)

Ms McLean estimated that the lost buildings numbered in the thousands in Paradise, about 180 miles north-east of San Francisco.

“Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed. It’s that kind of devastation,” he said.

While the cause of the fire was not known, Pacific Gas & Electric Company told state regulators it experienced an outage on an electrical transmission line near Paradise about 15 minutes before the blaze broke out.

The company said it later noticed damage to a transmission tower near the town. The utility’s filing was first reported by KQED News.

The massive blaze spread north on Friday, prompting officials to order the evacuation of Stirling City and Inskip, two communities north of Paradise along the Sierra Nevada foothills.

The wind-driven flames also spread to the west and reached Chico, a city of 90,000 people. Firefighters were able to stop the fire at the edge of the city, Cal Fire captain Bill Murphy said.

There were no signs of life on Friday on the road to Paradise except for the occasional bird chirp. A thick, yellow haze from the fire 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 scorched car with its doors open sat on the shoulder.

Evacuees from Paradise sat in stunned silence on Friday outside a Chico church where they took refuge the night before.

They all had harrowing tales of a slow-motion escape from a fire so close they could feel the heat inside their vehicles as they sat stuck in a terrifying traffic jam.

When the order came to evacuate, it was like the entire town of 27,000 residents decided to leave at once, they said.

Fire surrounded the evacuation route, and drivers panicked. Some crashed and others left their vehicles by the roadside.

“It was just a wall of fire on each side of us, and we could hardly see the road in front of us,” police officer Mark Bass said.

California Wildfires
Firefighters inspect burned out cars in Paradise, California (John Locher/AP)

A nurse called Rita Miller on Thursday morning, telling her she had to get her disabled mother, who lives a few blocks away, and flee Paradise immediately.

Ms Miller jumped in her boyfriend’s pick-up truck, which was low on petrol and equipped with a bad transmission. She instantly found herself stuck in gridlock.

“I was frantic,” she said. After an hour of no movement, she abandoned the truck and decided to try her luck on foot. While walking, a stranger in the traffic jam rolled down her window and asked Ms Miller if she needed help.

Ms Miller at first scoffed at the notion of getting back in a vehicle. Then she reconsidered, thinking: “I’m really scared. This is terrifying. I can’t breathe. I can’t see, and maybe I should humble myself and get in this woman’s car.”

The stranger helped Ms Miller pack up her mother and took them to safety in Chico. It took three hours to travel the 14 miles.

Concerned friends and family posted anxious messages on Twitter and other sites, saying they were looking for loved ones, particularly seniors who lived at retirement homes or alone.

About 20 of the same deputies who were helping to find and rescue people lost their own homes, Sheriff Kory Honea said.

“There are times when you have such rapid-moving fires … no amount of planning is going to result in a perfect scenario, and that’s what we had to deal with here,” Mr Honea told the Action News Network.

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