Hell on Earth

Pic by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images 

Image credit: Webpage http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/11/13/californias-endless-fire-season-climate-change

Screengrab of YouTube video of Highway to Hell – Driver films terrifying wildfire in Los Angeles, published November 09, 2018 

Palm trees frame a home being destroyed by a wildfire above Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, November 09, 2018. Image credit: Reed Saxon/AP 

Getty Images 


Santa Clara county sheriff’s search and rescue teams continue search for missing Camp fire victims on November 17, 2018. Image credit: Joel Angel Juarez/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Members of the Sacramento County Coroner's office look for human remains in the rubble of a house burned at the Camp Fire, November 12, 2018, in Paradise, California. Image credit: John Locher/AP

Destructive wildfires are tearing through northern and southern California, leaving behind swathes of ruination as well as fatalities:

Pix from CBS News

According to CNN, over 20 million people were in the way of the fiery calamity, which is being fuelled by a combustible combination of low humidity and fast-moving winds. 

It’s so severe that Governor Edmund G Brown Jr. announced on November 12, 2018 that the White House had approved California’s request for a Presidential Major Disaster Declaration – to support communities impacted by wildfires. 

[Note: A Presidential Major Disaster Declaration helps people in the affected counties through eligibility for support including crisis counselling, housing and unemployment assistance and legal services. It also provides public assistance to help state, tribal and local governments with ongoing emergency response and recovery, including the repair and replacement of disaster-damaged facilities and infrastructure, including roads, bridges and utilities. The declaration includes hazard mitigation, which helps state and local governments reduce the risks and consequences of future disasters]. 

From the photos and videos and descriptions that I saw and read, it conjures a vision of "hell on earth"!

Already, more than 8,000 firefighters have been mobilized to work on the front lines statewide. 

The Hollywood Reporter on November 13, 2018 had grimly reported: “The dead were found in burned-out cars, in the smouldering ruins of their homes, or next to their vehicles, apparently overcome by smoke and flames before they could jump behind the wheel and escape. In some cases, there were only charred fragments of bone, so small that coroner's investigators used a wire basket to sift and sort them”. 

Cal Fire on Monday issued a status report on the conflagration: 

CAMP FIRE. Location: Butte County – 151,272 acres scorched; 70 percent contained; 79 fatalities confirmed; 699 unaccounted for and 15,573 structures destroyed (11,713 residences, 472 commercial and 3,388 other buildings). Full containment expected November 30. 

The Camp Fire, which began on November 08, has become the deadliest wildfire in California history. Paradise (2017 population: 26,682), a town in Butte County in the Sierra Nevada foothills above the northeastern Sacramento Valley was devastated in a single day. 

WOOLSEY FIRE. Location: Los Angeles County & Ventura County – 96,949 acres burned; 94 percent contained; 3 fatalities confirmed; 1,500 structures destroyed, 341 damaged. Full containment expected November 22.

Latest update: According to CBS News, the Woolsey fire was finally contained on Wednesday evening despite a brief flare up.

Let's pray the worst is really over.