Posted on 11/13/2018 1:41:17 AM PST by Morgana
FULL TITLE: First victims of Paradise fire are identified as death toll rises to 42 with 220 still missing making it the deadliest in state history with remains found in charred cars and the ruins of their homes
Four victims of what has now been confirmed as the deadliest wildfire in the history of the state of California have been identified as three men and a woman.
The official death toll in Northern California's Camp Fire has climbed to 42 after local authorities revealed that the remains of another 13 people were found on Monday.
Ernest Foss, 65, of Paradise and Jesus 'Zeus' Fernandez, 48, of Concow have today both been pictured as friends and family paid tributes to them on social media. Carl Wiley, 77 of Maglia and Ellen Walker, in her 70s, of Concow, have also been named as having fallen victim to the deadly blaze.
The Camp Fire now also ranks as the most destructive on record in California, having leveled more than 7,100 homes and other buildings since it erupted on Thursday, officials said.
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Paradise is a popular retirement community with a quarter of the population there over the age of 65.
Honea said over the weekend that the devastation is so complete in some neighborhoods that 'it's very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there'.
'In some cases, the only remains we are able to recover are bones or bone fragments,' Honea said, adding that these were so small that coroner's investigators used a wire basket to sift and sort them.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
They had only a short time between knowledge that they had to evacuate and the fire overrunning the town. The stories are very sad, including people who went to get friends who could not evacuate on their own, but then the group of cars got caught in the fire as they were trying to drive out of town.
There is a need for faster warnings, and perhaps cutting trees back from the sides of major roads to reduce deaths due to cars on the roads being set on fire.
There are 4 roads out of Paradise, one was covered in fire (Pentz), one had officers turning people around at the north side of town (Skyway) to join the long line of people trying to get out (rather than letting them go through Magalia up to the 32), Skyway which is a two lane road through the narrow gap at the south side of town (designed for 1,000 cars an hour, not the 8,000+ who were all trying to use it at once) and Clark Rd which out of the area LEOs were trying to prevent people from using, incorrectly identifying it as being dangerous.
Adding to it was people north of Paradise also evacuating along Skyway heading south.
A lot of areas of Paradise are long dead end roads that dump into ‘main roads’ like Pearson which should have been turned into a one way only (west) street for evacuation and dumped down Clark (south) as a one way out.
These are the types of things that town and county OES departments are SUPPOSED to figure out AND practice.
Adding to the situation was the 2006 fire which threatened the town with a long evacuation and little damage - many figured they’d be just fine and authorities were overstating the danger, or they’d be safe again.
We had 100s missing in the Nuns and Tubbs fire. Most turned up as they were initially lost in the shuffle of evacs and confusion.
Part of the problem is that embers travel up to a mile in front of the actual fire. You think you have time, and then you don’t.
“how they feel sorry for the wildlife”
Yep, which is exactly what got us here in the first place. It started with the spotted owl and went on from there. This feeling sorry for the wildlife killed the logging industry and the forestry management and led to the massive undergrowth we see today.
Brown wants to blame it on climate change, but without fuel no fire can sustain itself. And if Brown really believes his own nonsense wouldn’t there be a massive push to get the logging industry going again to help with forest stewardship?
“And to make it worse, there have been some on FR saying how they feel sorry for the wildlife with zero mention of the People who perished.”
I have been through a couple of these and sometimes contract with Cal Fire. These things are heart breaking.
I feel a little guilty on two fronts; one is making a tidy some working some of these fires (I earn it), and two, looking at these areas afterwards (Not the homes, but the wild land) and thinking how much better it looks (I do remember finding animals who tried to bury their heads in the ground to escape. Those things are heartbreaking, to think of the terror level they experienced. It is even more heartbreaking to think of the people who suffer a similar fate.).
Some of these areas, heck, most of these areas are so insanely overgrown they are disasters waiting to happen. We had a heck of a fight here on the Nuns Fire. It started close to us and we had no time to even consider fleeing. We had prepared, clearing much vegetation and having a plan. We were in a defensible area. Sadly, most of these homes are in disastrous locations with wooden decks and siding, woodchip landscaping, plants against the house, wood piles nearby, palm tree, conifers, etc.. They are a recipe for disaster and in one of these wild situations (The Camp Fire was burning at 80 football fields a minute, at its peak.), crews have no choice but to bypass these death traps.
Sadly, I see people rebuilding the same way. A wooden fence is nothing but a fuse to your house. The radiant heat from your lawn in one of these is so great that it can ignite your curtains through the sealed, closed glass window. Wild stuff. And once they are going, they create their own wind storms.
Don’t be an ass - might as well bitch about puppies being aborted while ignoring human babies.
Nothing wrong with feeling for the animals that also died horribly - my beef is when folks ignore the humans in their statements. Have been a pet owner for many years and my pets get whatever they need to stay happy and healthy....however, if it came to a beloved pet or a human being, it would be no contest.
Don’t get me wrong, it pains me to see animals suffering - but humans come first...those who left their pets should be jailed.
Gotta sign in and prove to YouTube that you’re over 18 to see this video, but folks NEED to understand this evacuation stuff is LIFE AND DEATH.
About the 1:56 mark you’ll hear the guy talk about trying to save this one woman, but she HAD to put her makeup on, first.
She’s dead.
Burned to a crisp over her own damned vanity.
I worked with a guy who worked in Eastern Washington before he came to us. He was a city firefighter in Yakima. He told me some stories. They sent him and his crew out to protect a farm outside of town. They did prep work in case the fire came their direction. They were not feeling very concerned.
It gets windy there and he said that it was just moments between the time they noticed the fire coming toward them, and then it just blew right over them. He said all they had time to do was deploy their survival bags under the fire engine. Moments later when they were able to get out from under the engine it was totaled and the farm they were suppose to be protecting was just a bunch of burning garbage.
Controlled burns work in MS - even keeps pine scrub forest from taking off when they clear the underbrush.
Lord, please help the residents of Paradise CA. Amen.
5.56mm
Don't - your efforts are needed. And it's perfectly reasonable to feel sadness for the people that died, and the destruction of homes and wildlife.
Completely agree with you.
A lot of those lands are federal, not state.
[but she HAD to put her makeup on, first]
wow
If governors of other states can put in place plans to evac elderly from hurricane evacuation zones, WTH is with CA? And where were any family members of these folks?
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