(AP) PARADISE, Calif. – The burned-out wrecks of abandoned cars lining the roads out of this once-picturesque mountain town bear silent witness to residents’ frantic efforts escape the hellish advance of the raging Camp Fire.
Tires melted down to their steel belts. Windows blown out. Paint evaporated. Rims liquified and then solidified after running down the pavement. Fire leaping across the road.
"It just looked like Dante's Inferno," said evacuee John Yates, 65. "Black and red was all you could see."
Yates and thousands of other Paradise residents fled the flames on Thursday as the Camp Fire raged through town. As true darkness fell – smoke had clogged the air all afternoon – residents jammed onto winding, hilly two-lane roads. Witnesses reported blackout conditions, the smoke too thick to see through. Drivers collided, went off embankments, slammed into signs and trees as embers rained down upon them, setting trees and houses and cars alight.
“It looked like the gates of hell opened up, I swear,” said evacuee James Brown.
At east 23 people have died in the fire, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said late Saturday night. That makes it the second deadliest wildfire in state history, according to Cal Fire records. The Oakland Hills Fire killed 25 people in 1991.
At least five of the Camp Fire victims were found in cars. Others were found in houses. Dozens of people remain missing, and firefighters and deputies on Saturday were searching property-by-property for additional victims.
The still-burning Camp Fire is the most destructive in California history, torching 6,453 homes and burning more than 90,000 acres. About 52,000 residents have been evacuated from the fire, which is 5 percent contained. The cause remains under investigation.
Paradise residents who escaped shudder to think at the fate that nearly befell them and trade stories of friends who abandoned their cars to race through the fire on foot, their shoes melting on the hot pavement. Many residents say they evacuated on their own because they didn't receive any warning the fire was racing through town.
“I went into panic mode,” said Yates, who left behind most of his valuable, although he saved the ashes of his parents and son. “I got myself out of there.”
Starting next year, a new statewide emergency-alert system will counties to automatically enroll residents in county-operated emergency notification systems using the phone numbers attached to their utility accounts. The current alert system primarily uses landlines but gives residents the option to add other numbers, leaving the majority of people out of the loop.
Firefighters and police officers teared up Saturday as they thought of the people they couldn't help during the initial fire. All around the devastated town, the signs of the hurried evacuation remain, from the walkers and wheelchairs scattered outside a retirement center to the pets and livestock left behind.
"It's surreal," said Butte County sheriff's Deputy Brian Evans, 42, whose house burned down. Like many Paradise residents, Evans and his family have only their clothes on their back. His wife and her car were in Chico when the fire broke out, and his partner grabbed his son from school, which then burned down.
"The fire was moving very, very, very, very, very rapidly," Evans said, repeating himself for emphasis during a break dispatching search crews. Saturday, Evans didn't want to talk about the deaths of his neighbors. Instead, he's focused on doing his job and looking forward to a day when Paradise returns.
"It will take a while. But it will get better. It always does," he said. Source Page