OROVILLE, Calif. _ At least five people have been found dead in the town of Paradise in Northern California after the Camp fire raged through communities in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Authorities said Friday that investigators discovered the victims on Edgewood Lane, trapped in vehicles that were overtaken by the fire. Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea said they could not immediately be identified because they were burned so badly.
"There were people who weren't able to get out," Honea said, speaking from a makeshift command post at Butte College, which had been closed the previous day. As he talked, flakes of ash fell on his uniform as strong winds continued to buffet the nearby burning ridges.
Authorities are recovering bodies "with as much dignity as we can afford them," he said.
Emergency workers were struggling to comprehend and catalog the extent of the damage.
Mandatory evacuations sent Paradise's 27,000 residents, many of them retirees, scrambling to reach safety when the fire broke out Thursday. Thousands more in nearby rural communities spilled onto the roadways in a mad dash to reach evacuation shelters. About 200 people wound up trapped in the city's downtown area, Paradise Mayor Jody Jones said. Buses had to be sent to rescue them.
"This is such a chaotic and difficult situation," Honea said. "We had people who have been displaced and scattered all over."
Parts of Paradise were still burning Friday afternoon. Downed power lines and fallen trees were making it impossible for authorities to conduct door-to-door searches.
Thousands of firefighters have been dispatched to battle the blaze and at least three have been injured, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
Fed by high winds and a parched landscape, the fire exploded to 70,000 acres overnight, destroying as many as 2,000 homes and buildings across Butte County, officials said. The fire was 5 percent contained.
So far, firefighters have been able to prevent the blaze from reaching the city of Chico, home to about 90,000 people just west of Paradise. Officials said the blaze's western perimeter is about 11 miles away from Canyon Oak, a golf course community that flanks Chico.
Officials estimated that 15,000 homes and other buildings are still in the path of by the fast-moving blaze.
Jones said much of Paradise's business district was gone. One hospital had burned. The McDonald's and the Ace Hardware store were engulfed in flames.
"I think we lost a high school and at least one of the elementary schools," the mayor added.
As towns emptied and evacuation centers filled, many residents' focus shifted to searching for family members and friends.
Teresa Roberts spent the day frantically trying to reach her mother, Marilyn Allen, 69, and her grandfather, Richard Torres, 85, whose home of 13 years she feared was lost. Neither had registered themselves as safe on the Red Cross website. Her mom's cellphone just rang and rang. She hadn't responded to emails.
"I'm just terrified," said Roberts, 56. "Did they get out? That's all I want to know."
This part of Butte County is no stranger to wildfires. Ten years ago, a blaze struck Paradise, destroying dozens of structures and forced chaotic evacuations; the resulting panic was so alarming, angry residents showed up for months at community meetings demanding change.
"There had been no planning," said Peggy Musgrave, 85, who escaped the wrath of that fire only to find herself in gridlock again Thursday, joined by thousands of Paradise residents fleeing another raging fire.
But this time, Musgrave said, she felt there was a measure of control. People had been mailed instructions on what to do: what to pack, what routes to take out of town and a reminder to plan for their pets. When she learned through word of mouth of the encroaching Camp fire, she went to her closet for her box of prized photographs and records, and to another for her jewelry, and then she left.
"We immediately went into action," she said.
Traffic jammed. It took two hours for Musgrave to traverse approximately 16 miles. But at almost every intersection, she said, there was an informed official directing traffic and reassuring those in the evacuation gridlock they would be safe. "It gave you a feeling that if something did go wrong, we had somebody to be miserable with," Musgrave said.
Residents such as Howard Cole, who sought shelter from the Camp fire at a converted church in Oroville, know they are in fire country and say the evacuations are not unexpected.
"This is our fourth evacuation in 10 years," Cole said. "The first couple were chaos. It's getting better."
Still, other Paradise residents were critical _ not of the traffic jams that ensued, but of what they said was a lack of warning to get out in the first place.
Jane Palmer, 77, said she received four automated calls the night before the fire. They were from Pacific Gas & Electric, telling her the utility was about to cut her power, which it did about 9:30 p.m.
She said she realized Paradise was on fire and her mobile home park was threatened when she saw the smoke and flames. As she drove out, she encountered a neighbor, Patsy Jacobs, 62, trying to walk out. Palmer hauled her into the car and Jacobs, because Palmer cannot see well, navigated her rescuer through the bank of smoke and burning trees.
"What pisses me off is I don't think they told everybody soon enough," said Kim Benn, 49, a neighbor who realized she needed to flee the fire when another resident pounded on her door.
Honea said the county sent out automated warning calls to 23,862 households, using its Code Red system. However, it did not deploy a universal alert through the national emergency warning system that would have reached every cellphone within reach of activated cellphone towers.
Benn said houses on her street were already on fire when she realized she needed to leave. The fire was advancing so quickly that she immediately abandoned her car to jump into a neighbor's truck.
"Don't they realize this is a senior park?" Palmer said. "There's only one way out. And had it not been for a fellow who had a meeting about evacuation in August, one of the residents, I wouldn't have known what to do."
