Tag Archives: Woolsey fire

California utility probing possibility wires involved in wildfire

(Reuters) – A California utility informed regulators on Thursday that it was investigating whether a devastating wildfire near Malibu last month may have been caused by contact between a wire that provides pole support and a live wire.

Southern California Edison, in a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission, said it had not found evidence of an energized wire on the ground in the area where the Woolsey Fire was believed to have started on Nov. 8.

It did, however, find a so-called guy wire, which runs from the top of the pole to the ground, near a jumper wire that is used to connect two energized lines.

The utility said it is evaluating whether the guy wire came into contact with the jumper, which could have had the potential to cause the blaze. Some of the equipment is currently being tested by fire officials.

The cause of the fire may not be determined until additional information is available, Edison said.

The Woolsey Fire burned 97,000 acres near the Malibu coast, destroying 1,500 structures and causing three deaths, according to state fire officials.

Southern California Edison is a division of Edison International.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Rain helps douse California fires, but raises landslide risk

Vanthy Bizzle hands some small religious figurines to her husband Brett Bizzle in the remains of their home after returning for the first time since the Camp Fire forced them to evacuate in Paradise, California, U.S. November 22, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

By Elijah Nouvelage

CHICO, Calif. (Reuters) – More rain is forecast for northern California over the weekend, boosting firefighters’ efforts to extinguish the last of the wildfires that have raged there for two weeks, but raises the risk of flash floods and landslides in the scorched Sierra Nevada foothills.

The wet weather is also expected to complicate efforts to locate victims of what is called the Camp Fire, which virtually obliterated the city of Paradise, 175 miles (280 km) northeast of San Francisco, on Nov. 8.

Between 1 to 3 inches (2.5-7.5 cm) of rain is expected to fall between Friday and Sunday, adding to the 3 inches that already fell this week, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.

“Flash floods and debris flows will be a particular threat in the wildfire burn areas,” the NWS said in a notice warning of the risk of flash floods through late Friday afternoon. “Heavy rainfall at times is possible over the burn areas with the greatest threat expected today.”

That risk is low for thousands of evacuees who have fled the Camp Fire and are sheltering outside areas prone to mudslides.

At least 84 people died in the Camp Fire which started more than two weeks ago, making it one of the deadliest U.S. wildfires in the last 100 years. Paradise was a popular destination for retirees and two-thirds of the victims named so far were aged over 65.

As many as 560 people are still unaccounted for. That number has fluctuated widely over the past week, hitting a high of more than 1,200 over last weekend.

The fire was 95 percent contained across 154,000 acres, officials said late Thursday.

“All containment lines continued to hold throughout the day with the rain assisting in extinguishing hot spots and smoldering fire,” the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said late Thursday.

More than 800 volunteers and police officers spent the Thanksgiving holiday combing through the wreckage, searching for the remains of victims killed in the blaze as the ongoing rains looked set to complicate their work.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea has said the rain would make going through debris more difficult, but he was less concerned about remains washing away than the headaches posed by mud.

He has also warned that as all that remains of victims may be “very small bone fragments,” some of them may never be found.

The county has crews working around the clock laying sand bags and bags of hay to prevent debris from burnt homes being washed into streams and polluting the water supply.

Stanley Miniszewski Sr. uses a burnt golf club to look for a pair of expensive dentures in the remains of his RV after returning for the first time since the Camp Fire forced him to evacuate as his friend Merrill Jackson looks on at Pine Ridge Park in Paradise, California, U.S. November 22, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

Stanley Miniszewski Sr. uses a burnt golf club to look for a pair of expensive dentures in the remains of his RV after returning for the first time since the Camp Fire forced him to evacuate as his friend Merrill Jackson looks on at Pine Ridge Park in Paradise, California, U.S. November 22, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

“We’re doing everything we can to prepare for this,” Butte County assistant director for public works Radley Ott told KRCR TV.

Hundreds of people forced to flee Paradise spent Thanksgiving in warehouses in the nearby city of Chico. Celebrity chef Jose Andres was among the volunteers bringing some festive cheer by cooking Thanksgiving meals for evacuees.

The cause of the Camp Fire, which destroyed more than 13,500 homes, remains under investigation.

A separate California wildfire – the Woolsey Fire, which killed three people and threatened the wealthy beachfront enclave of Malibu near Los Angeles – was declared 100-percent contained on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Elijah Nouvelage; Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Phil Berlowitz)

Troops search ruins as California wildfire death toll climbs to 56

An anthropologist (R) examines the remains of a dog found in a bathtub in a home destroyed by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S., November 14, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

By Terray Sylvester

PARADISE, Calif. (Reuters) – U.S. National Guard troops fanned out to scour the ruins of the devastated town of Paradise on Thursday for remains of victims as 130 people remained listed as missing in California’s deadliest wildfire on record, whose death toll has risen to 56.

The “Camp Fire” blaze last Thursday obliterated the Sierra foothills town of Paradise, once home to 27,000 people. Most of the missing in and around Paradise, which lies about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco, are aged over 65.

The surface area of the fire had grown to 138,000 acres (56,000 hectares) by late Wednesday evening, even as diminished winds and rising humidity helped firefighters shore up containment lines around more than a third of the perimeter.

The National Guard contingent, 50 military police officers, has joined dozens of search-and-recovery workers and at least 22 cadaver dogs.

More than 9,000 firefighters and other personnel from many U.S. states are fighting the Camp Fire and the “Woolsey Fire” hundreds of miles to the south.

Paradise’s ghostly expanse of empty lots covered in ash and strewn with twisted wreckage and debris made a strong impression on Governor Jerry Brown, U.S. 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 nearby Chico.

Given the scale of the destruction in Paradise, some residents are weighing whether they can ever return.

“At this point, I’m taking it day-to-day,” Jeff Hill, who has been staying with relatives in nearby Chico since his home burned down, told NBC News. “There are no stores left, no restaurants, nothing.”

“It’s not even habitable,” he added.

At an evacuation center south of Paradise in Oroville that is so full that some people are sleeping in cars or tents, Nanette Benson, said her future is uncertain.

“We don’t know where the hell we’re going to go,” she told KRCR TV.

An anthropologist (R) examines the remains of a dog found in a bathtub in a home destroyed by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S., November 14, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

An anthropologist (R) examines the remains of a dog found in a bathtub in a home destroyed by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S., November 14, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

“CRITICALLY DRY VEGETATION”

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

Authorities attributed the high number 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.

Although the high winds that fueled the fires have eased, Ken Pimlott, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), told reporters late Wednesday that vegetation around the Camp Fire remained “critically dry.”

“We still have conditions that could produce new and damaging fires,” he said. “We are not letting out eye off this ball at all.”

Lawyers for some wildfire victims claimed in a lawsuit filed this week that lax equipment maintenance by an electric utility caused the fire, which officially remains under investigation.

The Butte County disaster coincided with blazes in Southern California, especially the Woolsey Fire, which has killed at least two people, destroyed more than 500 structures and displaced 200,000 people west of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said the body of a possible third victim was found. Cal Fire officials said that blaze was 52 percent contained as of Wednesday night.

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

The Camp Fire also stands as one of the deadliest U.S. 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 1910, incinerating 3 million acres.

(GRAPHIC: Deadly California fires, https://tmsnrt.rs/2Plpuui)

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing by Nick Carey; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Steve Orlofsky)

Ferocious winds whip California fires as death toll rises to 31

The Camp Fire burns near Big Bend, California, U.S., November 10, 2018. Picture taken November 10, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen La

By Stephen Lam

PARADISE, Calif. (Reuters) – The death toll from wildfires raging in California rose to 31 on Sunday after six more people were found killed in what was poised to become the deadliest wildfire in state history.

Officials said the bodies of five people were found in burned-out homes and the sixth was found in a vehicle in northern California’s Camp Fire, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told reporters on Sunday evening.

Some 228 people are still unaccounted for, Honea said, while another 137 people have been located after friends or relatives reported being unable to contact them.

A Butte County Sheriff deputy places yellow tape at the scene where human remains were found during the Camp fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 10, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

A Butte County Sheriff deputy places yellow tape at the scene where human remains were found during the Camp fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 10, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

The so-called Camp Fire in the northern part of the state has claimed at least 29 lives since it broke out on Thursday. Hundreds of miles to the south, at least two people have died in the Woolsey Fire threatening the wealthy beach community of Malibu, near Los Angeles.

Looting was reported in the southern fire area and arrests were made, police reported.

Hot dry winds expected to blow until Tuesday whipped up the flames and heightened the urgency of evacuation orders, officials said. It has been more than 210 days since the area received half an inch or more of rain, making it easy for spot fires to spread to fresh patches of tinder-dry vegetation, fire officials said on Sunday.

“We are entering a new normal,” said Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen, noting at a news conference that California’s fires in 2018 grow far more quickly than they did even 10 years ago.

“The rate of spread is exponentially more than it used to be,” he said.

Several officials urged residents to heed evacuation orders, noting they themselves had followed orders to leave their homes for safety.

Nov 10, 2018; Malibu, CA, USA; Nothing is left standing in one home on Deerhead Road. The area was overrun by the Woosley Fire which has consumed 70,000 acres as of 10/10/2018. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY

Nov 10, 2018; Malibu, CA, USA; Nothing is left standing in one home on Deerhead Road. The area was overrun by the Woosley Fire which has consumed 70,000 acres as of 10/10/2018. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY

“Winds are already blowing,” Chief Daryl Osby of the Los Angeles County Fire Department said. “They are going to blow for the next three days. Your house can be rebuilt but you can’t bring your life back.”

Crews pushed forward to achieve 25 percent containment of the Camp Fire in northern California, which had burned 111,000 acres (45,000 hectares) at the edge of the Plumas National Forest, according to Cal Fire’s website.

In Southern California, where the Woolsey Fire scorched at least 83,275 acres, the blaze was only 10 percent contained.

The Camp Fire burned down more than 6,700 homes and businesses in Paradise, more structures than any other California wildfire on record.

Its death toll now equals that of the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, the deadliest wildfire on record in California.

Several of the bodies discovered earlier this week were found in or near burned out cars, police have said. The flames descended on Paradise so fast that many people were forced to abandon their vehicles and run for their lives down the only road through the mountain town.

Winds of up to 40 miles per hour (64 km per hour) were forecast to blow in the north and gusts of up to 70 mph (113 kph), the so-called Santa Ana “devil wind,” were expected in Southern California.

The Woolsey Fire doubled in size from Friday night into Sunday, threatening thousands of homes after triggering mandatory evacuation orders for a quarter million people in the upscale Malibu beach colony as well as other communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Many celebrities live in the area. Despite earlier news reports, including by Reuters, that the fire had destroyed the home of Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender advocate and former athlete, her publicist said on Sunday that it had survived.

The entire nearby city of Calabasas, home to more than 20,000 people, was placed under a mandatory evacuation order by city officials on Sunday evening.

Governor Jerry Brown asked U.S. President Donald Trump to declare a major disaster to bolster the emergency response and help residents recover.

Trump, on a trip to France, said in a Twitter post early Sunday: “With proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart!”

The Republican president has previously blamed California officials for fires and threatened to withhold funding, saying the state should do more to remove rotten trees and other debris that fuel blazes.

State officials have blamed climate change and said many of the burn areas have been in federally managed lands.

(Reporting by Stephen Lam in Paradise; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis, Dan Whitcomb and Dana Feldman in Los Angeles, Rich McKay in Atlanta, Barbara Goldberg and Jonathan Allen in New York, and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Sandra Maler)

Five dead in California wildfire as second blaze forces Malibu evacuation

Firefighters battle flames overnight during a wildfire that burned dozens of homes in Thousand Oaks, California, U.S. November 9, 2018. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

By Stephen Lam

PARADISE, Calif. (Reuters) – A rapidly moving wildfire in Northern California killed five people when flames engulfed their vehicles as they attempted to flee the mountain town of Paradise in one of three infernos raging across the state, authorities said on Friday.

Nearly 500 miles (800 km) to the south, a blaze forced the evacuation of the upscale oceanside city of Malibu, home to many celebrities, and threatened the beleaguered town of Thousand Oaks, where a gunman killed 12 people this week in a shooting rampage in a bar and dance hall.

Since it broke out on Thursday, the so-called Camp Fire has more than tripled in size to 70,000 acres (2,838 hectares) after engulfing Paradise, a town of nearly 30,000 people, and was only 5-percent contained by Friday.

“The town is devastated, everything is destroyed,” said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) spokesman Scott Mclean, referring to Paradise, which has a population of 26,000 including many retirees.

In addition to the five people found dead in their vehicles, many were forced to abandon their cars and run for their lives down the sole road through the mountain town. About 2,000 structures were destroyed in the area, officials said.

The death toll is expected to climb above five, Mclean said, because flames have blocked search and rescue crews from looking for victims in destroyed homes.

“The only reason they found the five is because they were still on the road,” Mclean said.

HOT WINDS

The fires in California have been driven by hot winds from the east reaching speeds of up to 40 miles per hour (64 kph), forcing firefighters to scramble to keep up with the fast-moving flames.

In Southern California, the 14,000-acre (5,666-hectare) Woolsey Fire led authorities on Friday morning to expand mandatory evacuation orders to the entire city of Malibu.

Flames completely engulfed large homes in at least one affluent neighborhood.

“Fire is now burning out of control and heading into populated areas of Malibu,” the city said in a statement online. “All residents must evacuate immediately.”

In all, the Woolsey Fire led authorities to issue evacuation orders for 75,000 homes in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

It was not immediately clear how many homes had been destroyed.

Video shot from a news helicopter showed cars at a standstill on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, about 30 miles (48 km) west of downtown Los Angeles. An unspecified number of homes were destroyed there, according to local media.

MOVIE SET TOWN ABLAZE

The Woolsey Fire broke out on Thursday and quickly jumped the 101 Freeway. On Friday, it climbed across the Santa Monica Mountains toward Malibu.

It also threatened parts of nearby Thousand Oaks in Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles, the site of the shooting massacre earlier this week, stunning a community with a reputation for safety.

Linda Parks, a Ventura County supervisor, whose district covers Thousand Oaks, lamented the timing of the wildfire. “We are still reeling, but we are also very resilient,” she said.

On its path of destruction, the fire destroyed a Western-themed movie and television set in Agoura, north of Malibu, a unit of the National Park Service said on Twitter.

Western Town was created in the 1950s for television shows such as “The Cisco Kid,” and more recently was used for television shows such as “Westworld” and “Weeds,” and was a draw for visitors.

California Acting Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday declared a state of emergency for areas affected by the Woolsey and Hill fires in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

In Los Angeles, another fire in Griffith Park forced the Los Angeles Zoo to evacuate a number of show birds and some small primates on Friday as flames came within less than 2 miles (3 km) of the facility, zoo officials said in a statement.

“Animals and employees are safe,” the statement said.

(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall and Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Sandra Maler)

Three fast-moving California blazes cause thousands to flee

Wind-driven ambers are seen during the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

By Stephen Lam

PARADISE, Calif. (Reuters) – Three fast-moving wildfires burned in California on Friday morning, including one that spurred the evacuation of 75,000 homes near a city that was still reeling from a mass shooting.

An inmate firefighter crew work to create a defensible space while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

An inmate firefighter crew work to create a defensible space while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Voluntary evacuations of 75,000 homes were called for because of the Woolsey Fire that included parts of Thousand Oaks in Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles, the site of a mass shooting incident this week in which 12 people were killed.

The Woolsey blaze was also burning in parts of Los Angeles County.

Also burning in Ventura County was the Hill Fire, which had torched 10,000 acres (4047 hectares) by Thursday night, fire officials said.

In Northern California, the Camp Fire advanced rapidly to the outskirts of the city of Chico early on Friday, forcing thousands to flee after it left the nearby town of Paradise in ruins, California fire officials said.

Evacuation notices were set for homes on the east side of Chico, a city of about 93,000 people situated about 90 miles (145 km) north of Sacramento.

The Chico Fire Department said: “Firefighters continue to actively engage the fire in order to protect life and property.”

Firefighters battle to save structures while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Firefighters battle to save structures while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Flames from the unchecked, 20,000-acre (8,100-hectare) Camp Fire were being driven westward by 35-mile-per hour (56 km-per-hour) winds, fire officials said.

The blaze earlier ripped through Paradise, about 20 miles east of Chico.

“The town is devastated, everything is destroyed. There’s nothing much left standing,” said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) spokesman Scott Maclean.

“This fire moved so fast and grew so fast a lot of people got caught by it.”

Maclean said an as-yet unspecified number of civilians and firefighters had been injured, and it could be days before authorities would know whether anyone had died.

Paradise, located on a ridge, has limited escape routes. Traffic accidents turned roads into gridlock and residents abandoned vehicles and ran from the flames, carrying children and pets, officials said. One woman who was stuck in traffic went into labor, the Enterprise-Record newspaper reported.

A Cal Fire firefighter hoses a smoldering home while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

A Cal Fire firefighter hoses a smoldering home while battling the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 8, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

“It’s very chaotic,” said Officer Ryan Lambert of the California Highway Patrol.

Rescuers used a bulldozer to push abandoned cars out the way to reach Feather River Hospital and evacuate patients as flames engulfed the building, Butte County Supervisor Doug Teeter told reporters.

The hospital was totally destroyed, Mike Mangas, a spokesman for operator Dignity Health, told Action News Now.

The fire, which began early on Thursday, was the fiercest of several wind-driven blazes across California, during what has been one of the worst years for wildfires in the state.

In Ventura County, “Strong Santa Ana winds (are) expected to continue through this morning,” the National Weather Service in Los Angeles said on Twitter on Friday. That helped double the size of the Woolsey Fire to 8,000 acres (3238 hectares), fire officials said.

Wind gusts of 50 to 70 mph (80 to 113 kph) were expected in the mountains of Ventura County and up to 50 mph in the valleys and coastal areas of the county, the NWS said.

Travel was limited on U.S. Highway 101 in Ventura County, state highway patrol troopers said.

A former U.S. Marine combat veteran opened fire in a bar packed with college students in Thousand Oaks on Wednesday, killing 12 people in an incident that stunned a bucolic community with a reputation for safety.

(Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall and Brendan O’Brien; editing by John Stonestreet and Bernadette Baum)