The Camp Fire that raged through the small town of Paradise Thursday, has now grown to over 90,000 acres in less than 36 hours and is now burning to the southwest and into the east Chico city limits and Highway 32.
The Butte County Sheriff’s Office reported Friday that 9 people have been killed and 35 people have been reported missing. Three victims were found outside homes and four people inside vehicles. Another victim was found near a vehicle but outside it and only one of the nine people who had died was found inside a home.
Authorities say they conducted numerous rescues Friday as they fought the flames, including using helicopters to rescue five people in the nearby community of Magalia.
Although fire officials have not determined a cause for the blaze, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. reports that it experienced a problem on an electrical transmission line near the site of a massive fire in Northern California minutes before the blaze broke out.
The company said in a one-paragraph summary filed Thursday with state utility regulators, that it had experienced an outage on the line about 15 minutes before the fire started. The company said it later observed damage to a transmission tower on the line near the town of Paradise.
The fire area is still under the influence of low relative humidity’s, dry fuel moistures. Moderate to extreme fire behavior was observed over the fire area including spotting, wind and fuel driven runs. The fire will continue to burn to the northwest impacting the communities of Magalia and Paradise Lake.
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