Nine die in California wildfires

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Nurse Cassie Lerossignol hugs a coworker as the Feather River Hospital burns while the Camp Fire rages through Paradise, Calif, on Nov 8. (AP)

Nine people were killed and hundreds of thousands ordered to evacuate as wildfires raged Saturday across California, with one rapidly spreading blaze threatening the resort of Malibu, home to Hollywood stars.

The fatalities were reported in a massive late-season inferno in the town of Paradise, in Butte County north of the state capital Sacramento, where some 6,700 structures went up in flames – officially becoming California’s most destructive fire on record.

The fast-moving blaze, which authorities have named the “Camp Fire”, broke out Thursday morning. Fanned by strong winds, it has scorched 90,000 acres (36,400 hectares) and is only five percent contained, the California Fire Department (Cal Fire) said late Friday. Other large fires raged in southern California, including one just north of Los Angeles and another in Ventura County near Thousand Oaks, where a Marine Corps veteran shot dead 12 people in a country music bar on Wednesday night.

“The magnitude of destruction we have seen is really unbelievable and heartbreaking and our hearts go to everybody who has been affected by this,” said Mark Ghilarducci, the director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. Governor-elect Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to provide assistance to the fire-hit areas. Late Friday Butte County Sheriff Korey Honea said it was his “sad duty” to update the Camp Fire death toll to nine. “I don’t have all of the details because we have investigators out on the field” trying to reach the locations where casualties were reported, Honea told a press conference.

But he did say that four people were found inside a vehicle in the Paradise area, while another was found nearby outside the vehicle. Three more were found outside a residence, and one inside a house. Dozens of other people were reported missing. Residents who escaped Paradise posted harrowing videos to social media as they drove through tunnels of swirling smoke and orange flames to outrun the wildfire. (AP)

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