At least 9 dead in Paradise and 6700 homes destroyed. That’s a lot of suddenly homeless people.
The fire now covers more than 140 square miles.
I have two cousins who live in Paradise. Fortunately, both got out safely, but one said it took her three hours to get to Chico, which is about five miles away.
CalFire said the entire town is gone. A report this evening said over 6400 houses and over 200 businesses have been destroyed. The high school is gone. The “Welcome to Paradise” sign is gone.
We lived there for about three years when I was very young, and my aunt used to live there till about a year ago and my mother went to visit her frequently, so we would go up there all the time. Its population is about 27,000, but Paradise is a town of trees. Almost all of the buildings are nestled in lots full of evergreens. There are very few developments, just houses dotted amongst the trees everywhere.
We live about 200 miles from Paradise, but the smoke was so thick here that the temperature dropped by about ten degrees and the air was yellow.
There’s a #CalFire thread on twitter where people are asking for help and reporting any new information. For some reason, asshole James Woods is doing a lot of reporting on the fire.
Dayammmm, I grew up within an hour or so of Paradise, and been there many many times. This is so sad.
In two days, the Camp Fire has grown to be the most destructive in California history.
That looks like a volcanic eruption in the background.
A whole city gone - I just can’t imagine.
Kiddo (20 yo) works at front desk a hotel right off I-5 (near downtown). When he got to work on Thursday, they were at just over 50% capacity. When he finally left that evening, they were completely full. He spent the whole day booking rooms, checking people in, and sadly, eventually, turning people away. They made exceptions for security deposits and pet deposits to accommodate those fleeing the Camp Fire. The whole time they were also fielding call after call asking if friends and/or relatives had made it safely there. He said a lot of the people checking in said this was the closest hotel not fully booked that was near a main highway.
He was very much shaken when he got home.
Today we can’t breathe in Sacramento and the sky is an eerie color, but it’s nothing compared to the devastation north of us.
Sunrise this morning was like something out of Blade Runner. And I’m about 150 miles south of the Camp Fire. The town of Paradise is gone. I think this is the worst wildfire season we’ve had in decades. Maybe the worst in recorded history. Everything is bone dry, and we should be in our rainy season by now-- especially up north of SF.
So very, very sad. And down south, they can’t even burry their dead from the recent mass shooting as they are evacuating people from that area due to fire.
Rain, please rain!!
I’m just north of John, and the smell of smoke is pervasive in my house and my eyes are watering. I’m sure it is much worse in San Francisco and much, much worse closer to the fire.
We have friends in Calabassas, which is just inland from Malibu. They’ve been evacuated. They live in a valley with steep tree-lined hills on either side. I hope the fire doesn’t get to them.
Sadly, this is a trend. California’s weather balancing act is getting increasingly precarious.
I never knew that Teslas have a “bioweapon defensive mode.”
5 people died in their cars trying to flee the blaze. 
23 dead as of now; I won’t be surprised when they find more. Saddened, but not surprised.
Plus 2 found dead in their car in Malibu, caught as they tried to escape the fire, brings the count to at least 25 people killed by wildfires just in the past 2 days.
And about 30,000 homeless, without possessions.
The town of Paradise is not completely gone; the hospital, which appears to be on the edge of town per Google Maps, is still in operation, although the campus has sustained damage, the nature and extent of which is not on their website just yet.
I had wondered about this, because the hospital in Fort McMurray, AB was evacuated along with the rest of the town last year. The above link also has links to places where one can donate to the hospital or townspeople. It sounds like they want money, unless you live near the SDA church they mention in the link; they are taking donations of “stuff”.
My cousin lives right next door to the hospital, but she said as they were leaving that the trees on both sides of the street were burning.
The fire is now moving towards the larger town of Oroville.
That’s really scary.
It wasn’t all that long ago that Oroville was evacuated (hospital included) because of a threatened dambreak. That didn’t happen, and I hope this doesn’t either.
It would be a helluva thing if the fire weakened the dam somehow and caused it to fail now, wouldn’t it?
Satellite image from yesterday shows that the fire is freaking huge.
It might put the fire out, but at what OTHER cost?
When I imaging it, I just keep picturing it in my head like some '70s disaster flick, with really expensive scale models and stuff. IRL it’s just so fucking big.