MALIBOU LAKE, Calif. -- Three growing wildfires incinerated large sections of Northern and Southern California over the past three days, killing 25 people, displacing hundreds of thousands and turning a retirement community called Paradise into acres of ashes and charred foundations.
The Camp Fire north of Sacramento has destroyed some 6,700 structures, becoming the most destructive inferno in a state with a long and calamitous history of fires.
Since Thursday, more than 200,000 Californians have been displaced -- more than the population of Orlando, Fla. In addition to the dead, dozens of people have been reported missing.
Authorities also warned that property losses will be staggering. A pair of fires near Los Angeles threatened Malibu mansions and destroyed Paramount Ranch, the filming location of the HBO series Westworld.
Before officials announced the latest grim statistics and rising death toll Saturday, President Donald Trump fanned an ongoing dispute with California leaders, blaming mismanagement of state resources for the destruction and death.
"There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor," Trump tweeted Saturday morning. "Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!"
Trump earlier issued an emergency declaration providing federal funds to help firefighters.
By late Saturday afternoon, Trump's tone had changed. In a tweet, he noted that tens of thousands of acres had been burned and said, "Our hearts are with those fighting the fires, the 52,000 who have evacuated, and the families of the 11 who have died."
Trump closed by saying, "God Bless them all."
Saturday morning was the first time Trump had spoken publicly about the California blazes.
In Northern California's Butte County, about 90 miles north of state capital Sacramento, residents described fleeing a catastrophic fire that began Thursday. The inferno grew with incredible speed, claimed nine lives and turned a sunny day into an end-of-days scene of flames, smoke, sparks and wide destruction. Late Saturday, officials announced that they had found 14 additional bodies in Northern California. No additional details were available.
Named after nearby Camp Creek, the blaze is not yet extinguished. By Saturday, it had burned at least 90,000 acres, more than 140 square miles, and was only 20 percent contained, causing officials to declare a state of emergency over a situation likely to worsen over the weekend.
Officials warned that "red flag" conditions will persist on and off through Monday, hot, dry and windy weather that makes the land ripe for a fire's spread.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told reporters Friday evening that officials had found nine people killed in the fire. Four were found dead in their cars in Paradise, down from the five that officials had spoken about earlier. Three bodies were found outside a house, another was found inside a home and another was found near a car.
The fire has injured an undisclosed number of residents and three firefighters. Honea's deputies were looking into some 110 reports of missing people.
"This event was the worst-case scenario," Honea said. "It's the event that we have feared for a long time."
Trump has loudly and consistently blamed intensifying wildfires on poor resource management by California officials. In August, with fires growing to historic sizes in that state, Trump tweeted that the state is "foolishly" diverting "vast amounts of water from the North," blaming bad environmental laws for the summer's deadly fires.
Twice in October, Trump made similar threats to cut federal funding because of what he alleged was poor forest management policy, The Washington Post's Aaron Blake wrote.
California officials have countered Trump's claims in the past, saying that ever-intense fires are the result of global warming, which dries up vegetation and turns fire-prone areas of the state into a tinderbox.
In Southern California's Ventura County, still reeling from a mass shooting that left 12 people dead Wednesday in a country-music bar, more wildfires had broken out, forcing at least 100,000 people in Thousand Oaks, Malibu and other areas to flee their homes. The Woolsey Fire had burned some 35,000 acres, officials said, while the nearby Hill Fire had burned through 6,000.
On Saturday, Los Angeles County sheriff's chief John Benedict said two more people were found dead in the fire zone of a Southern California blaze.
Those two deaths are the first from the pair of wildfires burning to the north and west of downtown Los Angeles.
Firefighters have saved thousands of homes despite working in "extreme, tough fire conditions that they said they have never seen in their life," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said.
Those vicious conditions Friday night gave way to calm Saturday, with winds reduced to breezes. The Woolsey Fire had spread in several directions and doubled in size since Friday afternoon.
Firefighters used the lull to try to gain ground on the powerful blaze that had grown to 109 square miles and to get a grasp on how much damage caused in its first two days.
Osby said losses of homes were significant, but he did not say how many structures had burned. Officials said earlier that 150 houses had been destroyed and the number would rise. About 250,000 homes are under evacuation orders across the region.
Fire burned in famously ritzy coastal spots like Malibu, where Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian West, Guillermo del Toro and Martin Sheen were among people forced out of their homes by a citywide evacuation order.
Firefighters battled overnight Friday to save Pepperdine University in Malibu. The attack by air and ground resources appears to have prevented any major losses, though some outbuildings may have been damaged, the university said. It was a tense night, with those on campus taking refuge in several buildings as the firefight unfolded.
The fire reached the Pacific Ocean in several places, destroying a yet-uncounted number of beach homes.
Investigators were unable to reach the area until Saturday morning.
RACE FROM THE FLAMES
Of all the areas struck by fires in the state so far, Paradise had fared the worst by Saturday. Its main commercial street was transformed into a smoking runway of destruction. Officials said 6,453 homes and 260 businesses were destroyed, making the Camp Fire the most destructive in California's history. The previous record holder, the Tubbs Fire in the state's wine country, was just one year ago.
Marc Kessler, 55, a science teacher at a public middle school in Paradise, said the sky turned black soon after he arrived at work.
"It was raining black pieces of soot, coming down like a black snowstorm and starting fires everywhere," he said in an interview. "Within minutes, the town was engulfed."
Teachers were told by emergency workers to forgo seat-belt laws as they piled 200 or so students into their personal vehicles. Bus drivers drove through flames to help out, he said. One of his students pointed out what he thought was the moon in the darkened sky.
"I said, 'That's not the moon. That's the sun,'" he recalled, his voice cracking. "There were times when you couldn't see though the smoke."
The mayor of Paradise, Jody Jones, said most of the buildings in her town of 26,000 people have been destroyed.
"There are very few homes still standing, and we've been in multiple different neighborhoods this afternoon," Jones told CNN. "There's really not much left."
Paradise resident Brynn Chatfield posted a terrifying video as she and her family escaped the fire, flames a few feet from their vehicle and embers shooting across their path.
"Heavenly father, please help us," she prayed in the video. "Please help us to be safe."
The video concluded as the vehicle emerged from the flames into a normal day. Chatfield later posted the video, which has since been seen nearly 2 million times.
"My hometown of Paradise is on fire," she wrote. "My family is evacuated and safe. Not all my friends are safe."
On Saturday, as some evacuation orders were lifted, people began returning to their neighborhoods to see what was left.
Jeff McClenahan, 53, a college professor, returned Saturday to his home in Malibou Lake and found it destroyed, burned to the foundation Friday by the Woolsey Fire, which had jumped Highway 101.
He stared, disbelieving, then dropped to his knees, sobbing.
"On the one hand, it's just crap," he said. "It's stuff. But it's a lot of history. Everything, our whole lives were in here."
Information for this article was contributed by Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Joel Achenbach, Lindsey Bever, Eli Rosenberg, E. Aaron Williams, Tony Biasotti, Katie Mettler, Katie Zezima and Jason Samenow of The Washington Post; by Brittny Mejia, Ben Poston, Richard Winton, Ruben Vies, Melissa Etihad and Laura Newberry of The Los Angeles Times; and by Jonathan J. Cooper, Andrew Dalton, Courtney Bonnell and other staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 11/11/2018