Paradise, Calif., is in ruins after deadliest, most destructive fire in state history razes most homes
on November 21, 2018
By Tuesday evening, the Camp Fire, which started in the early morning hours of November 8 in Butte County, had claimed 81 lives, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO). By this morning, 153,336 acres—nearly 240 square miles—had burned, according to the incident information page of Cal Fire, the colloquial name for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the state agency that responds to more than 5,600 wildland fires a year, according to its website. So far, almost 870 people are on the missing persons list, as published by the BCSO, and over 13,500 homes had been destroyed. It is the deadliest and most destructive fire in California state history, as reported by The San Francisco Chronicle.
The fire, which remains an active one, has been 80 percent contained, and nearly 4,000 firefighters are deployed, according to Cal Fire. While some firefighters continue to battle the flames, other teams of firefighters from all around California—including from Oakland’s fire department—are working to sort through the rubble of what used to be people’s homes in search of human or animal remains. The grim task is just beginning for the California Task Force (CATF-4) Urban Search and Rescue team—they’ll likely be out here still searching for several days, if not weeks, they said.
Light rain falling on Northern California Wednesday morning could potentially hamper first responders’ efforts to locate human remains, as reported by the Associated Press, but could also assist those firefighters still actively working to contain the blaze.
Oakland Fire Department Deputy Chief Nicholas Luby said that his department had deployed at least 12 firefighters to the incident, although the need for personnel is greater. Luby said his department did not have the capacity to staff both his department and to fulfill the need for personnel at the incident. (Oakland firefighters also deployed to last year’s severe Napa fires, as reported by Oakland North.)
Veteran firefighters from CATF-4 said that they had not seen anything on the scale of the Camp Fire before. Some said they are now afraid that fires of such large magnitude have become routine.
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- On November 19, urban search and rescue teams combed through the ashes of neighborhoods searching for any trace of human remains, such as bone fragments.
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- Paradise, California, is in ruins after a devastating wildfire rolled through the remote town in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The Camp Fire, which broke out in the early morning on November 8, had been 80 percent contained by the morning of November 21.
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- Skeletal remains of scorched vehicles were abundant in Paradise after the fire.
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- Team members from California Task Force 4 (CATF-4) Urban Search and Rescue spent hours searching through a neighborhood in Paradise, Calif. At one point they thought they found human remains, but a later inspection by a K9 unit negated the hypothesis. By the end of the search period in this neighborhood, they came up empty-handed.
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- Captain Jack Thomas of the Santa Rosa Fire Department went over the town grid with other team members of CATF-4. Some houses had already been processed by the team, while others remained to be searched.
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- Symbols on the grid depicted the current status of each residence—whether they had been searched yet or not.
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- CATF-4’s assignment was to perform urban search and rescue. The team consisted of firefighters from counties throughout California, including Alameda and Sonoma counties.
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- All that stands in the burned remains of this house is a single chimney.
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- A sheer drop of several feet at the end of this cement walkway is all that is left where a home used to be. The letters “DROP” were spray-painted in yellow on the cement to caution other responders.
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- The fire took nearly a whole neighborhood, save for a few exceptions. The house right across from this one remained in seemingly pristine form. Trimming overhanging shrubs and ensuring the house is surrounded by “defensible space” are some reasons why a house may survive a wildfire while others around it may not.
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- A member of CATF-4 prepares to drive an all-terrain vehicle.
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- Deputy TFL (Task Force Leader) Kent Carlin supervised the task force from the back parking lot of the still-intact First Christian Church at Pentz Road and Pearson Road in Paradise, Calif.
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- A search and rescue K9 unit from Marin County attempted to find traces of human remains in a burned-out house.
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- Members of CATF-4 wrapped up hours of searching in a neighborhood after not finding human remains. Firefighters expect to keep working whole days—from light until dark—for many days to come.
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- CATF-4 members erected a makeshift command post behind the First Christian Church in Paradise, Calif., using a commandeered picnic table and the trunk of an SUV.
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