Californians are yet again fleeing from gigantic flames after two new wildfires broke out in the south of the state, with dramatic footage capturing a water-drop helicopter dousing cars – as well as the blaze burning right alongside them – with water as people frantically tried to escape.
Vehicles were forced to hug the inside of the interstate to avoid the heat and smoke, leaving the three lanes closest to the fire empty on the 118 Freeway in Simi Valley.
Footage shows traffic backing up while water-dropping helicopters and an air tanker fly back and forth overhead. The Simi Valley blaze, dubbed the Peak fire, has ravaged at least 105 acres, but fire crews said they stopped forward progress of the flames around 1pm yesterday.
The Peak fire comes as firefighters continue to battle blazes that have left 44 dead and at least 200 missing. All but two of those who died were in the northern Californian town of Paradise. The deadliest wildfire the state has ever seen – dubbed the Camp fire – swept through the area and displaced all its residents.
Cars were hugging the inside of the 118 freeway in southern California – with three lanes left empty as drivers tried to avoid the heat and smoke
Water-drop helicopters were dousing cars as well as the flames as they drove along the interstate in southern California
Two new fires broke out in south California – the Peak fire in Simi Valley (pictured) as well as one in Thousand Oaks which is still reeling from a mass shooting
A firefighter battles a fire along the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway in Simi Valley, California on Monday, November 12, 2018
Two new wildfires have broken out in Southern California as the state continues to fight back blazes that have left 42 dead and wreaked havoc for days. Pictured is the Peak fire on California State Route 118
In Simi Valley, people could be seen turning their cars around and driving the wrong way on the 118 Freeway to get away from the smoke and flames. The California Highway Patrol temporarily closed part of the road as firefighters worked to contain the flames.
Two water-dropping helicopters and a firefighting airplane were at the scene and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department initially issued evacuation orders for nearby residents.
The other new blaze, the Lynn fire, broke out in Thousand Oaks, which is still reeling from a horrific mass shooting that took 12 lives last week.
The Lynn fire burned five acres but the Ventura County Fire Department said yesterday the threat to nearby structures was ‘diminishing’ as firefighters were able to ‘get a handle’ on the flames. By 11.45am officials said surrounding homes were not under threat and that the fire was holding.
An air tanker drops water on the Peak Fire next to the 118 Freeway in California. People could be seen turning their cars around and driving the wrong way on the freeway to get away from the smoke and flames. The California Highway Patrol temporarily closed part of the freeway as firefighters worked to contain the flames
A helicopter circles overhead prepareing to drop water onto the fire which broke out along the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway in Simi Valley, Southern California
Black smoke billows from the Peak Fire which broke out yesterday alongside the 118 Freeway in Simi Valley, southern California
An air tanker drops water on a fire along the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway in Simi Valley amid clouds of thick black smoke
Crews taking advantage of a weekend lull in the winds had the immense Woolsey blaze, which stretches from north of Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean, about 30 percent contained.
Although that was significant progress from only a few days earlier thanks to the lull in Santa Ana winds, it has ravaged scenic canyons and celebrity enclaves near the ocean. At least 435 buildings had burned – most of them homes – and the hot embers smoldering there could become the sparks for more devastation, fire officials said.
Fire crews stamping out the two new blazes on Monday were still working to corral the hot western and eastern sides of the fire, which had burned its way through drought-stricken canyonlands in and around Malibu, burning modest mobile homes as well as celebrity houses.
The hot, dry gusty winds are expected to blow through Wednesday, although not quite as furiously as last week. Winds, coupled with higher average annual temperatures, tinder-dry brush and a lack of rain in recent years, make the ‘perfect ingredients’ for explosive fire growth around the state, said Chris Anthony, a division chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
A car drives along the empty Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway in Simi Valley California in bad visibility caused by the Peak Fire
‘I’ve been doing this job for 31 years and probably in the last five, maybe seven years, every year seems to get worse,’ California Fire Chief Scott Jalbert told The Associated Press.
The fire has burned more than 80 percent of National Parks Service land in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, officials said.
Fire officials lifted some evacuation orders Monday in Los Angeles County while warning Southern California residents to remain vigilant as strong winds fanned the new fires. While some returned home, others were told to leave. As one major freeway reopened, another was closed.
The return to normal for some was juxtaposed with the arrival of chaos for others, illustrating how quickly conditions can turn. At least 57,000 homes were still considered threatened, state fire officials said, and more than 200,000 people remained under evacuation orders.
Relief and heartache awaited those who were allowed to return home Monday. Paul Rasmussen, his pregnant wife and 6-year-old daughter fled their mountainside Malibu home Friday for what they thought would be the last time.
Paul Rasmussen gasped Monday as he rounded corners on the road home that revealed the extent of damage with more than a dozen nearby houses reduced to rubble. But their home survived. His next-door neighbor, Randy Berkeley, protected his home and the Rasmussens’ house.
Berkeley and his wife, Robyn Berkeley, choked back tears as they recounted their ordeal holding back a 100-foot wall of flames and then repeatedly beating back hot spots that continued to flare up throughout the night and next day.
The couple and their 25-year-old son, Colin, used hoses, buckets of water and chain saws to battle flames and cut back brush as the fire kept coming to life.
‘Just when you think everything is dying down, everything keeps coming back,’ Randy Berkeley said.
A pair of adults were found last week in a car overtaken by flames a couple miles from Rasmussen’s house. Those fatalities added to California’s growing wildfire-related death toll.
At least 42 people were confirmed dead in the wildfire that obliterated the Northern California town of Paradise, making it the deadliest wildfire in recorded state history. The search for bodies continues.
The cause of the Southern California fires remained under investigation.
Southern California Edison reported to the California Public Utilities Commission ‘out of an abundance of caution’ that there was an outage on an electrical circuit near where the fire started Thursday. The report said there was no indication its equipment was involved in the fire reported two minutes after the outage.
Downed powerlines and blown transformers have been blamed for several of the deadly fires that have burned in recent years.
The California Highway Patrol has since closed part of the 118 freeway as firefighters worked to fight back against the blaze
The area covered by the Woolsey fire is shown in red on the right, while the Hill fire is in red on the left. Celebrities affected by the fire include: 1) Gerard Butler, whose house was partially destroyed; 2) Miley Cyrus, house destroyed; 3) Robin Thicke, house destroyed; 4) Lady Gaga, who has been evacuated; 5) Will Smith, evacuated; 6) Simon Cowell, evacuated
Firefighters were already battling the deadly Woolsey fire, which has killed two people and is only 20 per cent contained, as well as the Hill fire when two new blazes sparked on Monday
This map shows the location of the Camp, Hill and Woolsey fires in California. In total, 31 people have died in the blazes
Smoke from the initial three California wildfires have been so intense that they even reached the metro Detroit area by Monday as it stretched across the US (pictured)
The Lynn fire broke out in Thousand Oaks, which is still reeling from a horrific mass shooting that took 12 lives last week. Pictured is a map showing the area where the fire has broken out
A wildfire-ravaged property is seen Monday in Malibu. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby says he expects further damage assessments to show that hundreds more homes have been lost on top of the 370 already counted
The inside of a car that was completely incinerated as the Woolsey fire burned through Malibu over the weekend
Several animal rescue volunteers have risked their lives saving dozens of animals. A burned cat waits for animal control to arrive after they were called by responders who discovered it near Bille Road in Paradise, California on Sunday
Smoke from the initial three California wildfires has been so intense that it even reached the metro Detroit area on Monday. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association maps showed smoke from the wildfires stretching across the US.
The Woolsey fire has destroyed 370 homes and businesses in the Los Angeles and Ventura countries and 57,000 structures are still threatened, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Officials said firefighters are focusing on keeping the blaze within containment lines.
Areas including Malibu, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, and Topanga are among those still under evacuation orders.
Gerard Butler, Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, and Camille Grammer Meyer of ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ were among those whose Malibu homes were destroyed in the Woolsey fire.
Meanwhile the Kardashian clan, Simon Cowell, Will Smith, Lady Gaga and Martin Sheen were among other those who had to evacuate the star-studded Malibu and Calabasas areas.
A helicopter drops water on brush burning near Pepperdine University as the Woolsey Fire continues to burn in Malibu on Monday morning
The Woolsey fire has destroyed 370 homes and businesses in the Los Angeles and Ventura countries and 57,000 structures are still threatened
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said approximately 600 officers would be ‘saturating evacuated areas’ on patrol for looters and to ‘ensure the protection of residents and their properties’. A sign in the area read: ‘Welcome 2 Point Dume. Looters get bullets. Fireman get HUGS’
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said approximately 600 officers would be ‘saturating evacuated areas’ on patrol for looters and to ‘ensure the protection of residents and their properties’.
A sign in the area read: ‘Welcome 2 Point Dume. Looters get bullets. Fireman get HUGS.’
Los Angeles County has also advised all residents to stay indoors as much as possible and keep windows and doors closed due to unhealthy air quality and exposure to ‘ash, soot, and small particles’.
Meanwhile more than a dozen coroner search and recovery teams looked for human remains from a Northern California wildfire that killed at least 42 – making it the deadliest in state history – as anxious relatives visited shelters and called police hoping to find loved ones alive.
Lisa Jordan drove 600 miles from Yakima, Washington, to search for her uncle, Nick Clark, and his wife, Anne Clark, of Paradise, California. Anne Clark suffers from multiple sclerosis and is unable to walk. No one knows if they were able to evacuate, or even if their house still exists, she said.
‘I’m staying hopeful,’ she said. ‘Until the final word comes, you keep fighting against it.’
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea updated the confirmed fatality number Monday night – a figure that is almost certain to spike following the blaze that last week destroyed Paradise, a town of 27,000 about 180 miles (290 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.
Authorities were bringing in two mobile morgue units and requesting 150 search and rescue personnel. Officials were unsure of the exact number of missing.
‘I want to recover as many remains as we possibly can, as soon as we can. Because I know the toll it takes on loved ones,’ Honea said.
Chaplains accompanied some coroner search teams that visited dozens of addresses belonging to people reported missing. For those on the grim search, no cars in the driveway is good, one car a little more ominous and multiple burned-out vehicles equals a call for extra vigilance.
State officials said the cause of the inferno was under investigation.
Meanwhile, a landowner near where the blaze began, Betsy Ann Cowley, said she got an email from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. the day before the fire last week telling her that crews needed to come onto her property because the utility’s power lines were causing sparks. PG&E had no comment on the email.
Stan Craig’s sister, Beverly Craig Powers, has not returned numerous texts and calls, and the adult children of her partner, Robert Duvall, have not heard from their father, he said. The couple was last seen evacuating their Paradise home on Thursday with two pickup trucks and a travel trailer, so they could be camping.
He knows friends and family are still being reunited with missing loved ones, but he said his unease grows every day. Still, the Fresno, California, resident wasn’t planning on heading to the fire area. As a former firefighter himself, he said he understands the chaos wildfires cause.
‘I’m going to stay here until I have something more to go on,’ he said.
All told, more 8,000 firefighters statewide were battling wildfires that destroyed more than 7,000 structures and scorched more than 325 square miles (840 square kilometers), the flames feeding on dry brush and driven by blowtorch winds.
There were tiny signs of some sense of order returning to Paradise and anonymous gestures meant to rally the spirits of firefighters who have worked in a burned-over wasteland for days.
Large American flags stuck into the ground lined both sides of the road at the town limits, and temporary stop signs appeared overnight at major intersections. Downed power lines that had blocked roads were cut away, and crews took down burned trees with chain saws.
The 42 dead in Northern California surpassed the deadliest single fire on record, a 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. A series of wildfires in Northern California’s wine country last fall killed 44 people and destroyed more than 5,000 homes.
When the Camp Fire struck near Paradise on Thursday morning, 27,000 people tried to flee the town on roads that were quickly blocked (pictured, a downed power line stops traffic) or else clogged with cars
Journeys that should have taken minutes ended up taking hours, with dozens of people telling how they jumped out of the cars and ran, carrying whatever they could
At least seven people burned to death inside their vehicles while trying to escape from Paradise on Thursday as 27,000 people packed on to a four-lane road – the only route out of town that wasn’t blocked.
Survivors sat in miles-long tailback as flames licked at their car doors, while others jumped out and ran, carrying pets and valuables.
Greg Woodcox who led a caravan of vehicles that was overcome by flames from a wildfire says he saw his friend die.
Woodcox said Monday that he heard his friend scream as the heat blew out windows. Four other people in the vehicles died. Woodcox said he was too exhausted to talk more by phone.
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, the 58-year-old said he was in a Jeep ahead of the other vehicles and ran when the flames overtook them.
He said he followed a fox to a path down a steep embankment, and he survived by submerging himself in a stream for nearly an hour.
Evacuations were hindered by the fact that Paradise is a popular retirement community, meaning many residents are elderly and struggle to move
Medics at the Feather River Hospital in Paradise were given just 20 minutes to clear all the patients out before the fire arrived
Nichole Jolly, 34, a nurse at the hospital in Paradise, said she attempted to flee in her truck before being rammed into a ditch by another motorist trying to get out.
She climbed out of her truck and tried to get into another, but the handles had melted off, so she ran up the road as her pants leg caught on fire.
‘I’m breathing in the hottest air I’ve ever been in. My throat is bloodied, I’m about to hit the ground but the bottom of my shoes were melting,’ she told NBC.
‘I put hand out in front of me and prayed to God, ‘Please, don’t let me die like this.”
She did eventually make it to a fire truck, where the crew told her to ‘brace yourself because we might not make it’.
It was only after a bulldozer arrived to clear the road that the truck, and Jolly, were able to escape.
Meanwhile Lauri Kester, a caretaker for the elderly, told the New York Times that it took an hour to drive just three miles on Thursday as the fire advanced.
Eventually, a police officer running past told Kester to abandon her vehicle and make a break for it.
She grabbed her dog Biscuit and ran.
‘It was hot, it was smoky and – this sounds like such an exaggeration, but – it was apocalyptic,’ she said.
Wendell Whitmore, 62, was another of those who tried to flee Paradise in his car, but was forced to make a break for it on foot as the situation became desperate.
He told the Sacramento Bee: ‘There were flames to the left of me and flames to the right. The flames were up in the trees, all the houses were on fire.
‘The fire was three feet from my car. The rubber around the windows was melting. That’s when I decided to get out.’
Butte County Sheriff Cory Honea revealed another 228 people are unaccounted for, adding that finding their remains is proving difficult, as many bodies have been reduced to little more than bone fragments
The death toll rose on Sunday after the remains of five people were found inside houses in Paradise, while another was found in a nearby car (pictured, body bags are loaded into a hearse in Paradise)
The extent of the Camp Fire is seen in this satellite image taken on November 10, as it burned through northern California
At least 29 people have died in the Camp wildfire, making it the joint-deadliest in California’s history alongside the Griffith Park fire which struck Los Angeles in 1933 (pictured, bodies are located in the town of Paradise)
University of Nevada Reno archaeology students recover human remains in a mobile home park in Paradise on Sunday
A car sits next to a trail of metal which was melted by the heat of the fire before solidifying again as the blaze moved away
Barbara Hall has been calling shelters and the sheriff’s office hoping to find out whether her aunt, Arlene and her husband Paul Bickel made it out of their home in a retirement community in Paradise.
So far, Hall has had no luck. Her relatives are in their 80s and 90s and Hall isn’t allowed into Paradise to see if their car is in front of a house that may no longer be standing.
Hall asked: ‘Did they make it in their car? Did they get away? Did their car go over the edge of a mountain somewhere? I just don’t know.’
She said she was making phone calls with her daughter’s mobile phone from nearby Redding, where her daughter lives. The couple only had a landline, which had phone numbers programmed into it, and calls to it don’t go through.
Hall says her aunt’s parents adopted her father when he was a boy and that she is like a big sister to her.
Jody Jones, mayor of Paradise who previously worked as a traffic specialist in LA, said the town did put together an evacuation plan after a fire tore through in 2008.
One of the fire’s victims was an ailing woman whose body was found in bed in a burned-out house in Concow, near Paradise. Ellen Walker, who was in her early 70s, was home alone when the fire struck on Thursday, according to Nancy Breeding, a family friend
Pieces of crumbling wall and a chimney is all that remains of this house which was gutted in the Camp Fire
Some cars never made it off the driveway before being consumed by the flames, which have also destroyed 6,500 buildings
The plan called for Paradise to evacuate neighborhood by neighborhood, and they even practiced it last year, but it fell to pieces within moments on Thursday.
‘I don’t know that you could build the infrastructure to evacuate an entire town that quickly,’ she said. ‘I just don’t know if that’s possible.’
The Rocklin Police Department, which was called on to assist Butte County with the Camp fire, also shared a chilling video of the area’s destruction over the weekend.
Officers filmed apocalyptic scenes that showed dozens upon dozens of burned-out cars, buses, and trucks, and residential streets that had been completely leveled by the fire.
Men ‘dressed as US Forest Service workers’ are arrested for suspected looting in devastated Paradise
Suspected looters who appeared to be impersonating US Forest Service workers have been arrested in Paradise, California.
The town of Paradise has been nearly decimated by the Camp fire, which has already taken 29 lives.
But it appears some were hoping to take advantage of the devastating tragedy.
Men who were dressed in bright yellow jackets similar to those worn by US Forest Service workers were arrested in the fire zone on Saturday night.
Suspected looters who appeared to be impersonating Forest Service workers were arrested in Paradise, California on Saturday night. One is pictured here
Men who were dressed in bright yellow jackets similar to those worn by US Forest Service workers were arrested in the fire zone
Authorities said the men may have worn the jackets to gain access to the evacuated area, according to CBS San Francisco.
Police have not disclosed what the men were trying to steal.
There have been 53 reports of suspected looting in the scorched area.
And law enforcement have confirmed that the Camp fire has sparked a crime wave in Butte County.
Authorities said the men may have worn the jackets to gain access to the evacuated area
Police have not disclosed what the men were trying to steal. There have been 53 reports of suspected looting in the scorched area
Sheriff Kory Honea promised on Saturday that looting suspects would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
‘If we discover looting and evidence of looting, we will investigate,’ he said during a press conference on Saturday.
‘And even if we don’t catch you there, we will investigate to determine if we can identify you and make an arrest.’
As of Sunday night, Honea said the department had received 66 additional calls about ‘suspicious incidents’ – including looting – in the area.
Sunday saw Paradise’s death toll rise after five bodies were found inside houses in the burned-out town, while another was discovered in a nearby car.
Authorities said 228 people are still unaccounted, meaning that death toll could rise considerably in the town, which is a popular retirement community.
A quarter of Paradise’s population was over the age of 65.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said 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.
In southern California, the Woolsey Fire has torched more than 83,000 acres and destroyed 175 buildings along the way
The remains of a house can be seen in Westlake Village, near Thousand Oaks, after the Woolsey Fire swept through Sunday
This was the scene in Westlake Village, in California, on Sunday. The suburb is located in Thousand Oaks, just a few miles from where last week’s mass shooting took place
Firefighters work to extinguish a flare-up of the Woolsey Fire on a hillside in West Hills, California on Sunday afternoon
FOUR OUT OF 42 VICTIMS ARE IDENTIFIED
One of the fire’s victims was an ailing woman whose body was found in bed in a burned-out house in Concow, near Paradise.
Ellen Walker, who was in her early 70s, was home alone when the fire struck on Thursday, according to Nancy Breeding, a family friend.
Breeding said Walker’s husband was at work and called a neighbor to tell his wife to evacuate, but she was on medication and might not have been alert.
A total of four victims killed by the Camp Fire have been identified since Sunday. Officials stand over human remains at a burned out home destroyed by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California
He assumed she had escaped the inferno and was trying to find her at rescue centers until authorities confirmed her death late Friday.
‘Yesterday a fireman took him to the house to confirm, she apparently died in bed,’ Breeding said.
‘This is a devastating thing, and it’s happening to so many people,’ she added.
Butte County Sheriff Cory Honea identified three more victims on Monday.
Ernest Foss, 54, of Paradise, Jesus Fernandez, 48, of Concow, and Carl Wiley, 77, of Magalia, were identified as victims.
Ten search and recovery teams are working in Paradise, along with a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify victims.
The Camp Fire has been the state’s most destructive fire in the state’s history, decimating 6,700 homes and businesses. Officials expect the numbers to increase significantly.
The fire originated on Camp Creek Road near Highway 70 around 6.30am on Thursday.
Firefighters were dispatched to a vegetation fire in the area ‘under the high tension power lines’ at 6.33am.
Officials said the wildfires may intensify due to strong Santa Ana winds as more than 8,000 firefighters continue to battle the deadly infernos
Gerard Butler was among those celebrities able to return to their homes on Sunday after being evacuated, only to find it destroyed. Pictured is what is left of his Malibu home
Robin Thicke’s home was also completely destroyed by the fire, leaving nothing more than a pile of rubble and ash behind
Aerials show the extent of damage inflicted on Thicke’s mansion, which he shares with girlfriend April Love Geary
Miley Cyrus also took to Twitter on Sunday to reveal that her home had been destroyed
The ground at the home of Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth still smolders after the Woolsey Fire in Malibu
Miley’s dog statue (pictured) could be seen with smoke coming from the ground next to its feet from the blaze
Camille Grammer also revealed on Sunday that she had lost her home (pictured on Monday), saying it ‘couldn’t be saved’
Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson also lost his home in the blaze this weekend. He posted photos of what was still left standing on Saturday
FIREFIGHTERS AND POLICEMEN SAVE AMERICAN FLAGS IN DECIMATED TOWNS
In a town almost completely destroyed by one of the deadliest fires in California’s history, a firefighter was able to save an American flag.
The firefighter was captured on video walking through the destroyed town of Paradise with the Stars and Stripes this weekend.
He makes sure to hold the tattered but intact flag above the ground until he finds a mailbox standing in front of a decimated house.
A firefighter was captured on video rescuing an American flag in the decimated town of Paradise, California this weekend
The firefighter then gently drapes the flag over the mailbox, tying two of its strings together to secure it.
Footage of the firefighter has since been shared by CBS News and quickly went viral.
Many found the video to be especially moving as it was released on Veteran’s Day.
The firefighter was then seen gently draping the flag over the mailbox in a touching tribute
He took two of the flags dangling strings and tied them together to secure it to the mailbox
It was also a touching tribute to a town that has been almost completely wiped out by the Camp fire, which has killed 29 people.
Two hours south of Paradise, in the city of Elk Grove, police came upon another patriotic scene.
Every house in the street had been leveled by the Camp fire. Nothing had been left standing, except for a flag pole.
And flying on top of that pole was a flag in almost perfect condition.
Elk Grove Police said they secured the flag and wrote down the address of the home, hoping they can one day return the flag to its rightful owners.
Two hours south of Paradise, in the city of Elk Grove, police came upon an American flag still standing on a street where every house had been destroyed
Nothing had been left standing, except for a flag pole and the flag (pictured) which was still in almost perfect condition
‘Typically this time of year when we get fires in Southern California we can rely upon our mutual aid partners in Northern California to come assist us because this time of year they’ve already had significant rainfall or even snow,’ said Daryl L. Osby, the LA County fire chief.
With the devastation and loss of life in the Northern California fire, ‘it’s evident from that situation statewide that we’re in climate change and it’s going to be here for the foreseeable future,’ he said.
Gov Jerry Brown has asked President Donald Trump to declare a major disaster to bolster the emergency response and help residents recover.
Brown’s request for a major-disaster declaration from Trump would make victims eligible for crisis counseling, housing and unemployment help, and legal aid.
Trump has blamed ‘poor’ forest management for the fires. Brown told a press briefing that federal and state governments must do more forest management but said that’s not the source of the problem.
‘Managing all the forests everywhere we can does not stop climate change,’ Brown said. ‘And those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies that we’re now witnessing, and will continue to witness in the coming years.’
Brown warned that it would take ‘hundreds of billions’ of dollars to continue to fight California’s growing number of wildfires and blamed climate change for ‘threatening our whole way of life’.
‘This is not the new normal,’ he said. ‘This is the new abnormal.’
The burnt out remains of a Malibu mansion that was decimated by the Woolsey fire is seen on Sunday afternoon
The neighborhood was run over by the Southern California fire, which leveled a number of mansions including many that belonged to celebrities
A deck is seen burning at a Malibu mansion that was hit by the Woolsey fire, which consumed more than 70,000 acres
All that is left standing of what was once a weight room in the backyard of a Malibu mansion is seen on Sunday afternoon