A state of emergency has been declared as a fast-moving fire burns through Butte County, California.Evacuation orders have been issued for the fire, which has burned 20,000 acres.One of the hardest hit areas was the town of Paradise, which is about 180 miles northeast of San Francisco."Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed, it's that kind of devastation," said Cal Fire Capt. Scott McLean late Thursday.</s>MALIBU, Calif. — A fierce wildfire in Northern California incinerated most of a town of about 30,000 people with flames that moved so fast there was nothing firefighters could do, authorities said Friday. Nine people died in what quickly grew into the state's most destructive fire in at least a century.

Only a day after it began, the blaze near the town of Paradise had grown to nearly 140 square miles (362 square kilometers), had destroyed more than 6,700 structures — almost all of them homes — and was burning completely out of control.

"There was really no firefight involved," Capt. Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said, explaining that crews gave up attacking the flames and instead helped people get out alive. "These firefighters were in the rescue mode all day yesterday."

With fires also burning in Southern California , state officials put the total number of people forced from their homes at about 250,000. Evacuation orders included the entire city of Malibu, which is home to 13,000, among them some of Hollywood's biggest stars.

President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration providing federal funds for Butte, Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

When Paradise was evacuated, the order set off a desperate exodus in which many motorists got stuck in gridlocked traffic and abandoned their vehicles to flee on foot. People reported seeing much of the community go up in flames, including homes, supermarkets, businesses, restaurants, schools and a retirement center.

"A whole town was wiped out in 24 hours," said Rocklin Police officer Jon Gee. "It's crazy."

Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said 157,000 people had been forced from their homes in three major fires in the Golden State, including the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise.

In Southern California, some 75,000 homes were ordered evacuated in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, with the Los Angeles County Fire Department tweeting: "imminent threat."

Ventura County Fire Department Captain Scott Dettorre warned that as the fire crossed the famous highway 101, a major transportation artery, “it will make its historic and typical run all the way down Pacific Coast Highway, threatening more homes, more property, more lives,” KTLA-TV reports.

Fire officials initially ordered the evacuation of all 13,000 residents of the community, which stretches 21 miles along the ocean, but later scaled it back to the western two-thirds of the city.

The Woolsey Fire had exploded to more than 5 square miles Friday morning and was continuing to grow.

Homeowners fleeing the wind-driven blaze around Malibu jammed roadways as the fire crept closer to the affluent, surfside community, which is home to numerous movie and TV stars. The celebrity site The Blast said homes belonging to Mel Gibson, Caitlyn Jenner, Lady Gaga, Courteney Cox, Julia Roberts and Patrick Dempsey were located in the evacuation zone.

As cars snarled Pacific Coast Highway, some residents lined up five deep at a gas station for a last chance to get fuel. All were being directed south toward the safety of Santa Monica.

At the Point Dume Village shopping Center north of the famed Malibu pier, business was brisk at a coffee bar, the Cafe De La Plage. The customers all fit into the look of the locals — T-shirts, shorts and sandals — but many of them were evacuees who had fled their homes the night before in the belief Malibu would be a safe haven.

“I am just very unhappy,“ said James Collins, 48, from the small community of Cornell. He said he had been evacuated at 4 a.m. but he was taking it in stride, noting the rest of the nation has had its share of natural disasters recently.

“Other people have rain. We have fire,“ said Collins.

A pair of Dutch bicyclists in a trek from Vancouver, British Columbia, to San Diego were trying to stay ahead of the flames. They had gotten on the road before the highway closures and peddled as smoke billowed in the hills nearby.

“We are not afraid,” said one of them, Twan Goense, 24, of Delft, the Netherlands.

As the fires closed in on Malibu, one resident on Twitter pleaded for help in evacuating 40 horses from a farm, The Malibu Times reports.

Pepperdine University shut down its Malibu and Calabasas campuses and initiated shelter-in-place protocols as the fire roared southward, sweeping into the Santa Monica mountains.

The Woolsey fire was one of three ravaging the state, with the northern California town of Paradise largely destroyed overnight.

The swift-moving Camp Fire moved Friday morning into the eastern side of Chico, a city with a population of around 90,000. Fire officials said strong winds had hampered efforts to drop retardant by aircraft.

As the blaze roared into Paradise, it turned escape routes into tunnels of fire as the entire community of 27,000 residents were ordered to evacuate.

On Thursday, as flames engulfed Paradise, frantic residents racing to safety plunged into the thick smoke that darkened the daytime sky and made driving difficult.

“We were surrounded by fire, we were driving through fire on each side of the road,” said police officer Mark Bass, who lives in Paradise and works in neighboring Chico.

Bass evacuated his family and then returned to the fire to help rescue several disabled residents, including a man trying to carry his bedridden wife to safety. “It was just a wall of fire on each side of us, and we could hardly see the road in front of us.”

Sherri Pritchard said she only had time to grab a few pictures before fleeing with her family and dogs, even leaving clothes behind.

"It was crazy, because when we were sitting in traffic people were panicking," she said. "It was chaos. I couldn't believe what people were doing."

Reality TV celebrity Kim Kardashian-West, who lives in an area known as Hidden Hills in Los Angeles county, was among those forced to evacuate as the Woolsey Fire exploded to 8,000 acres, People magazine reported. She had been filming aerial shots in her private plane earlier for her Instagram Stories and realized her own home was threatened. Just landed back home and had 1 hour to pack up & evacuate our home. I pray everyone is safe,” she wrote.

Friday morning, fire officials reported that the fire had jumped Highway 101 near the city of Calabasas.

Flames consume a car and building as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018.

Cal Fire Capt. Scott McLean said a couple of thousand structures were destroyed in the town about 180 miles northeast of San Francisco. “Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed, it’s that kind of devastation,” he said.

The National Weather Service issued red-flag warnings for fire dangers in many areas of the state, saying low humidity and strong winds were expected to continue through the evening.

Acting California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Butte County, where the fire was burning about 80 acres per minute at one point, according to UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. That’s equal to about 60 football fields per minute.

The Hill Fire comes down the hillside near Thousand Oaks at Hill Canyon Road and Santa Rosa Road Thursday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, the Hill Fire near Thousand Oaks in Ventura Country needed just 12 minutes to jump Highway 101, one of the area’s primary roadways. It burned in the same path as the 2013 Springs Fire that torched 24,000 acres before running into the Pacific Ocean.

The Hill Fire had consumed 10,000 acres, or 15 square miles, according to Cal Fire, though the Ventura County Fire Department reported no injuries or structure losses at a Thursday night press conference.

“The first part of this fuel bed had not seen fire for many years. Drought-stricken fuels, Santa Ana wind conditions, low relative humidity, high temperatures: It’s a recipe for fire,” said Ventura County Fire Department Assistant Chief Chad Cook, the incident commander for the Hill Fire.

The Woolsey Fire triggered a mandatory evacuation order for the entire beachside city of Malibu. The Los Angeles County Fire Department tweeted that the fire is headed to the ocean, punctuating the message with the declaration: "Imminent threat!"

The fire swelled unabated to 8,000 acres over night in Ventura and Los Angeles counties with the Santa Ana winds fanning flames and forcing hundreds of people from their homes.

Reality TV celebrity Kim Kardashian-West, who lives in an area known as Hidden Hills in Los Angeles county, was among those forced to evacuate their homes, People magazine reported. She had been filming aerial shots in her private plane earlier for her Instagram Stories and realized her own home was threatened.

“Just landed back home and had 1 hour to pack up & evacuate our home. I pray everyone is safe,” she wrote.

Friday morning, fire officials reported that the fire had jumped Highway 101 near the city of Calabasas.</s>A pair of fast-growing wildfires are raging in California, forcing tens of thousands of residents from their homes and burning some 30,000 acres across the northern and southern parts of the state.

The Camp Fire, about 90 miles north of Sacramento in Butte County, has scorched over 31 square miles in Butte County, Cal Fire said in its 7 p.m. PST update. Officials said 15,000 structures are being threatened as 2,289 fire personnel work against the flames.

In Southern California, the Hill Fire had charred 15 square miles, Cal Fire said Thursday night. Spurred by strong Santa Ana winds, the Hill Fire flared amid red-flag warnings near Thousand Oaks, which was already reeling after a late-night shooting at a dance bar left 13 people dead, including the suspected gunman.

No injuries or structure losses have been reported, the Ventura County Fire Department said during a Thursday night press conference. Officials said they expected the fire to burn to the Pacific Coast Highway and to the Pacific Ocean, potentially reaching 30,000 acres.

High winds are also to blame for the Camp Fire, which Cal Fire described as "very dangerous" in an afternoon tweet while encouraging people to heed widespread evacuation orders.

Neil Lareau, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Nevada, Reno, said the Camp Fire is moving twice as fast as the Carr Fire, which devastated Shasta County this summer.

Flames consume a building as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. A California fire official says a fast-moving wildfire in Northern California has destroyed structures and injured civilians.

“Certainly, there were periods during the Carr Fire where it moved at a faster rate of spread . . . but not for a prolonged period. We have seen a sustained rapid fire growth all day today,” Lareau told the Redding Record Searchlight of the USA TODAY Network.

It wasn’t until two days after it started that the Carr Fire started blowing up.

“The Carr Fire on the day of its rapid expansion into northwest Redding was somewhat wind-driven and moved about six miles in the same amount of time the Camp Fire moved in 11 hours,” Lareau said.

The intense winds driving the Camp Fire are much of the same conditions that fueled the Wine Country fires that ripped through Napa and Sonoma counties in October 2017, Lareau said.

The 40 to 50 mph gusts are not atypical for this time of year in California.

“What’s atypical are the extreme dry fuels for this late in the season,” Lareau said. “We haven’t gotten a good soaking of rain across Northern California.”

A few thousand structures were destroyed in the city of Paradise, about 180 miles northeast of San Francisco, Cal Fire Capt. Scott McLean told the Associated Press on Thursday night.

"Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed, it's that kind of devastation," McLean said. "The wind that was predicted came and just wiped it out."

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea confirmed that people had to abandon their vehicles as they try to flee the fast-moving fire, which was 0 percent contained.

Shary Bernacett said she and her husband tried to get people to leave the mobile home park they manage in Paradise, with just minutes to evacuate as the wildfire approached.

The two “knocked on doors, yelled and screamed” to alert as many of the residents of 53 mobile homes and recreational vehicles as possible to leave the area.

“My husband tried his best to get everybody out. The whole hill’s on fire. God help us!”” Bernacett said.

The couple grabbed their dog, jumped in their pickup and drove through flames before getting to safety on Highway 99, she said.

Medical personnel evacuate patients as the Feather River Hospital burns while the Camp Fire rages through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018.

Acting California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Butte County, where the fire was burning about 80 acres per minute at one point, according to UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. That's equal to about 60 football fields per minute.

The Hill Fire, which was expected to burn the same area that was destroyed by the Springs Fire in 2013, could threaten up to 5,000 structures, fire officials told the Ventura County Star of the USA TODAY Network.

"The challenge for us is that we're at the beginning of a significant Santa Ana wind event that will last several days," a VCFD official said during Thursday night's press conference.

The risk of fire danger was high throughout the state on Thursday, AccuWeather said.

"The combination of ongoing drought, high winds and very low relative humidity will lead to dangerous conditions for fire weather in parts of California," the National Weather Service said.</s>Raging wildfires in California have driven 157,000 people from their homes and caused unspecified numbers of fatalities, fire officials said Friday. Near Los Angeles, a large portion of the beachside town of Malibu was ordered evacuated as a wind-driven blaze jumped the U.S. 101 Freeway and raced toward the sea.

Northern California officials said Friday that investigators found five people dead in vehicles that were torched by the flames of one of the ferocious wildfires.

The Butte County Sheriff's Office said the victims were found in the same area in the town of Paradise.

Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said the Camp Fire in Northern California that destroyed the town of Paradise had also claimed lives, but said the number was unknown.

The Camp Fire, which has wracked Butte County, 80 miles north of Sacramento, quadrupled overnight to nearly 110 square miles, according to fire officials.

In Southern California, some 75,000 homes were ordered evacuated in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, with the Los Angeles County Fire Department tweeting: "imminent threat," adding that "Malibu lakes residents must leave area immediately."

Ventura County Fire Department Captain Scott Dettorre warned that as the fire crosses the famous highway 101, “it will make its historic and typical run all the way down Pacific Coast Highway, threatening more homes, more property, more lives,” KTLA-TV reports.

Fire officials initially ordered the evacuation of all 13,000 residents of the community, which stretches 21 miles along the ocean, but later scaled it back to the western two-thirds of the city.

Homeowners fleeing the wind-driven blaze jammed roadways as the fire crept closer to a community that is home to such movie and TV stars as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Ellen DeGeneres and Angelina Jolie.

At one point, one resident on Twitter pleaded for help in evacuating 40 horses from a farm, The Malibu Times reports.

Pepperdine University shut down its Malibu and Calabasas campuses and initiated shelter-in-place protocols as the fire roared southward, sweeping into the Santa Monica mountains.

The Woolsey fire was one of three ravaging the state, with the northern California town of Paradise largely destroyed overnight.

The swift-moving Camp Fire moved Friday morning into the eastern side of Chico, a city with a population of around 90,000. Fire officials said strong winds had hampered efforts to drop retardant by aircraft.

As the blaze roared into Paradise, it turned escape routes into tunnels of fire as the entire community of 27,000 residents were ordered to evacuate.

On Thursday, as flames engulfed Paradise, frantic residents racing to safety plunged into the thick smoke that darkened the daytime sky and made driving difficult.

“We were surrounded by fire, we were driving through fire on each side of the road,” said police officer Mark Bass, who lives in Paradise and works in neighboring Chico.

Bass evacuated his family and then returned to the fire to help rescue several disabled residents, including a man trying to carry his bedridden wife to safety. “It was just a wall of fire on each side of us, and we could hardly see the road in front of us.”

Sherri Pritchard said she only had time to grab a few pictures before fleeing with her family and dogs, even leaving clothes behind.

"It was crazy, because when we were sitting in traffic people were panicking," she said. "It was chaos. I couldn't believe what people were doing."

Flames consume a car and building as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018.

Cal Fire Capt. Scott McLean said a couple of thousand structures were destroyed in the town about 180 miles northeast of San Francisco. “Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed, it’s that kind of devastation,” he said.

The National Weather Service issued red-flag warnings for fire dangers in many areas of the state, saying low humidity and strong winds were expected to continue through the evening.

Acting California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Butte County, where the fire was burning about 80 acres per minute at one point, according to UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain. That’s equal to about 60 football fields per minute.

The Hill Fire comes down the hillside near Thousand Oaks at Hill Canyon Road and Santa Rosa Road Thursday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, the Hill Fire near Thousand Oaks in Ventura Country needed just 12 minutes to jump Highway 101, one of the area’s primary roadways. It burned in the same path as the 2013 Springs Fire that torched 24,000 acres before running into the Pacific Ocean.

The Hill Fire had consumed 10,000 acres, or 15 square miles, according to Cal Fire, though the Ventura County Fire Department reported no injuries or structure losses at a Thursday night press conference.

“The first part of this fuel bed had not seen fire for many years. Drought-stricken fuels, Santa Ana wind conditions, low relative humidity, high temperatures: It’s a recipe for fire,” said Ventura County Fire Department Assistant Chief Chad Cook, the incident commander for the Hill Fire.

The Woolsey Fire triggered a mandatory evacuation order for the entire beachside city of Malibu. The Los Angeles County Fire Department tweeted that the fire is headed to the ocean, punctuating the message with the declaration: "Imminent threat!"

The fire swelled unabated to 8,000 acres over night in Ventura and Los Angeles counties with the Santa Ana winds fanning flames and forcing hundreds of people from their homes.

The Ventura County fire department said Friday that 75,000 homes were ordered evacuated in the two adjoining counties west of Los Angeles.

Reality TV celebrity Kim Kardashian-West, who lives in an area known as Hidden Hills in Los Angeles county, was among those forced to evacuate their homes, People magazine reported. She had been filming aerial shots in her private plane earlier for her Instagram Stories and realized her own home was threatened.

“Just landed back home and had 1 hour to pack up & evacuate our home. I pray everyone is safe,” she wrote.

Friday morning, fire officials reported that the fire had jumped Highway 101 near the city of Calabasas.</s>A series of fast-moving wildfires are racing up and down California early Friday, destroying thousands of structures in their paths and forcing thousands of residents to evacuate through flame-lined streets.

Fanned by high winds and low humidity, the fires spread rapidly Thursday and overnight Friday.

The threat continues Friday morning, with more than 20 million people under red flag warnings.

Here’s what we know about the trio of fires:

Tanah Clunies-Ross woke up in the dark to what sounded like lumps of coal raining down on her Northern California home. Within minutes, her family and thousands of people were racing to escape the raging flames of the Camp Fire.

“The smell of the smoke and realizing the smoke was a lot closer than I thought and then seeing flames up to my knees. … I lost it,” she said.

Her family was among the 40,000 residents forced to evacuate in Butte County, California, after the fire broke out early Thursday, “growing uncontrollably” at a rate of about 80 football fields per minute. So far, it has burned through 20,000 acres, injured firefighters and residents, and prompted hospitals and schools to quickly evacuate.

The full extent of the destruction is still unknown, but authorities believe up to 1,000 structures have been destroyed — most of those in Paradise, a town of 26,000 people about 85 miles north of Sacramento, a Cal Fire spokesman said.

Paradise resident Whitney Vaughn described the chaotic evacuations on roads lined with burning trees.

“People were abandoning their cars and running with their babies and kids. This was right before someone rammed our vehicle with theirs, trying to get through,” Vaughn wrote on Facebook. “There were no firefighters in sight. I am hoping all of these people made it out.”

Multiple injuries have been reported by both civilians and firefighters, Cal Fire spokesman John Gaddie said. The extent of their injuries is unknown.

Late Thursday, more than 2,200 firefighters were battling the flames and the fire remains uncontained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in the area and has requested federal funds to help those impacted by wildfires in the state. Newsom is serving as acting governor while Gov. Jerry Brown is traveling out of state.

Authorities fear the fire, fueled by strong winds, could reach Chico — a city of 90,000 people where many Butte County families already have evacuated to shelters.

In Southern California, the night sky burned orange as the Woolsey Fire in Los Angeles and Ventura counties grew thousands of acres overnight, exploding from 2,000 acres to 7,500 in a matter of hours. Mandatory evacuations were in effect early Friday, and 30,000 homes were under threat from the blaze. Some structures have already been destroyed, Cal Fire reported.

Hidden Hills resident Adrienne Janic gave her home over to firefighters late Thursday to use as a command center. Her deck provided a strong vantage point to monitor the spread of the fire.

By 1 a.m. (4 a.m. ET), more firefighters arrived as the flames closed in on Janic’s street.

 “While a lot of my yard and neighbors’ yards burned, the firefighters saved our homes,” Janic tweeted just after 2 a.m. (5 a.m. ET) Friday. “We are still not out of the woods yet.”

Just down the road from the Thousand Oaks bar where 12 people were killed in a mass shooting, residents were also grappling with the Hill Fire, which quickly spread to cover 10,000 acres, Ventura County Fire Department officials said.

Just 12 minutes after it started Thursday afternoon, the flames spread across the 101 Freeway, leaving several drivers temporarily stranded. The highway is expected to remain closed Friday morning, Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen said.

Residents took to social media to share their views of the flames nearly consuming the hillside in Newbury Park, which borders Thousands Oaks to the west.

While no homes or businesses have been lost due to the fast-moving fire, a number of RVs and outbuildings have been burned and a firefighter suffered a minor injury, authorities said.

Fire officials anticipate the fire will reach the Pacific Ocean.</s>MALIBU, Calif. — Firefighters hoped that a brief lull in howling winds would give them a chance on Saturday to block, or at least slow, one of two massive California wildfires that have left 11 people dead and driven a quarter-million people from their homes.

Cal Fire officials said the Woolsey fire, that destroyed at least 150 homes and forced residents to evacuate the entire seaside town of Malibu, was still listed as "zero contained."

The Camp Fire, which wiped out the town of Paradise in Butte County, 80 miles north of Sacramento, was only five percent contained.

The brief respite in the high winds Saturday could give firefighters a chance to control the edges of the blazes and to swap crews, replacing firefighters who had worked for two days without rest, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said.

But with the winds expected to return to 35 mph gusts on Sunday, it’s likely more homes would be lost, Osby warned.

Two additional fatalities reported in Malibu may have been related to the fire that swept the area Friday night, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Chief John Benedict.

n Paris, President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration providing federal funds for Butte, Ventura and Los Angeles counties but later threatened on Twitter to withhold federal payments to California, claiming its forest management is “so poor.”

"Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests," he wrote. "Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

Hardest hit was Paradise, a town of 27,000 in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where nine people died, some torched inside their cars as they were attempting to flee the sudden approach of the flames.

The town is a popular retirement community, raising concerns of elderly and immobile residents who have been reported missing.

On Friday, dozens of burned-out cars and SUVs lined the main road out of Paradise known simply as Skyway, stripped down to their bare metal by flames that melted aluminum engine blocks, vaporized plastic door handles and exploded their windows.

In the afternoon, a small army of firefighters and emergency workers picked their way through the debris, small fires burning in trees and in the ruins of houses. Power lines littered the streets, and heavy smoke blocked out the sun.

For Cinda Larimer, it was the fourth time in 20 years that she has evacuated her home in Paradise. Three times she has came back to an untouched structure.

Not this time. All she now has left is a minivan stuffed with four cats, a turtle and her dog named Buddy.

“We’ve lost it all,” Larimer, 53, said as ash from the burning town drifted onto her shoulders about five miles outside of Paradise. “My mother, she evacuated and only took two outfits. Why? For the same reason: We all thought we’d be going home today.”

The Camp Fire, which has exploded to 140 square miles and has destroyed more than 6,700 structures — most of them homes — is California’s most destructive wildfire since record-keeping began.

In Southern California, west of Los Angeles, the Woolsey fire has ballooned to almost 55 acres after jumping Highway 101, the main coastal artery, and racing to the sea.

In less than two days, the Woolsey Fire and the smaller Hill Fire, also in Ventura County, have destroyed more than 150 homes and prompted evacuation orders for more than 250,000 people, fire officials said.

Officials ordered the evacuation of the entire city, which stretches 21 miles along the coastline and includes the homes of such celebrities as Lady Gaga, Mel Gibson and Cher.

The attempt to flee the flames has been hampered by clogged roads. In addition, power has been cut off in many parts of Malibu, causing gas pumps not to work.

Flames consume a car and building as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018.

Abouty 20 miles north, in the smoke-choked community of Calabasas, local residents and sooty firefighters gathered at the Starbucks inside the Albertsons supermarket in what appeared to be the only open business inside the evacuation area.

There was no outside electricity, only power from a backjup generator. Residents, many wearing masks for protection against the smoke, shared videos that they taken on their smart phones showing flames engulfing their backyards.

Paul Bancroft said he was not about to about his house, which took him three years to build, in a nearby area known as Old Agoura.

The Hill Fire comes down the hillside near Thousand Oaks at Hill Canyon Road and Santa Rosa Road Thursday afternoon.

The fire burned “right up to the fence (and) started burning in my bushes.” he said. He managed to douse it with a garden hose.

“I’ve built my home and I didn’t want to leave,” Bancroft said</s>A state of emergency has been declared as a fast-moving fire burns through Butte County, California.Evacuation orders have been issued for the fire, which has burned 20,000 acres.One of the hardest hit areas was the town of Paradise, which is about 180 miles northeast of San Francisco."Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed, it's that kind of devastation," said Cal Fire Capt. Scott McLean late Thursday.</s>MALIBU, Calif. — Firefighters hoped that a brief lull in howling winds would give them a chance on Saturday to block, or at least slow, one of two massive California wildfires that have left 11 people dead and driven a quarter-million people from their homes.

Cal Fire officials said the Woolsey fire, that destroyed at least 150 homes and forced residents to evacuate the entire seaside town of Malibu, was still listed as "zero contained."

The Camp Fire, which wiped out the town of Paradise in Butte County, 80 miles north of Sacramento, was only five percent contained.

The brief respite in the high winds Saturday could give firefighters a chance to control the edges of the blazes and to swap crews, replacing firefighters who had worked for two days without rest, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said.

But with the winds expected to return to 35 mph gusts on Sunday, it’s likely more homes would be lost, Osby warned.

Two additional fatalities reported in Malibu may have been related to the fire that swept the area Friday night, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Chief John Benedict.

n Paris, President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration providing federal funds for Butte, Ventura and Los Angeles counties but later threatened on Twitter to withhold federal payments to California, claiming its forest management is “so poor.”

"Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests," he wrote. "Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

Hardest hit was Paradise, a town of 27,000 in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where nine people died, some torched inside their cars as they were attempting to flee the sudden approach of the flames.

The town is a popular retirement community, raising concerns of elderly and immobile residents who have been reported missing.

On Friday, dozens of burned-out cars and SUVs lined the main road out of Paradise known simply as Skyway, stripped down to their bare metal by flames that melted aluminum engine blocks, vaporized plastic door handles and exploded their windows.

In the afternoon, a small army of firefighters and emergency workers picked their way through the debris, small fires burning in trees and in the ruins of houses. Power lines littered the streets, and heavy smoke blocked out the sun.

For Cinda Larimer, it was the fourth time in 20 years that she has evacuated her home in Paradise. Three times she has came back to an untouched structure.

Not this time. All she now has left is a minivan stuffed with four cats, a turtle and her dog named Buddy.

“We’ve lost it all,” Larimer, 53, said as ash from the burning town drifted onto her shoulders about five miles outside of Paradise. “My mother, she evacuated and only took two outfits. Why? For the same reason: We all thought we’d be going home today.”

The Camp Fire, which has exploded to 140 square miles and has destroyed more than 6,700 structures — most of them homes — is California’s most destructive wildfire since record-keeping began.

In Southern California, west of Los Angeles, the Woolsey fire has ballooned to almost 55 acres after jumping Highway 101, the main coastal artery, and racing to the sea.

In less than two days, the Woolsey Fire and the smaller Hill Fire, also in Ventura County, have destroyed more than 150 homes and prompted evacuation orders for more than 250,000 people, fire officials said.

Officials ordered the evacuation of the entire city, which stretches 21 miles along the coastline and includes the homes of such celebrities as Lady Gaga, Mel Gibson and Cher.

The attempt to flee the flames has been hampered by clogged roads. In addition, power has been cut off in many parts of Malibu, causing gas pumps not to work.

Flames consume a car and building as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018.

Abouty 20 miles north, in the smoke-choked community of Calabasas, local residents and sooty firefighters gathered at the Starbucks inside the Albertsons supermarket in what appeared to be the only open business inside the evacuation area.

There was no outside electricity, only power from a backjup generator. Residents, many wearing masks for protection against the smoke, shared videos that they taken on their smart phones showing flames engulfing their backyards.

Paul Bancroft said he was not about to about his house, which took him three years to build, in a nearby area known as Old Agoura.

The Hill Fire comes down the hillside near Thousand Oaks at Hill Canyon Road and Santa Rosa Road Thursday afternoon.

The fire burned “right up to the fence (and) started burning in my bushes.” he said. He managed to douse it with a garden hose.

“I’ve built my home and I didn’t want to leave,” Bancroft said</s>Two California Wildfires Destroy Thousands Of Buildings And Force Mass Evacuations

The Camp fire is raging in Northern California and the Woolsey fire is ablaze in Southern California.</s>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Fleeing through flames: 'I'm so scared right now... so terrified'

At least 11 people have died in the most destructive wildfires ripping through north and south California.

More than 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes to avoid three major blazes in the state.

Firefighters were powerless in stopping a wildfire destroying the northern town of Paradise, where nine people died and 35 are missing.

Another fire swept into the affluent southern beach resort of Malibu on Friday and has now doubled in size.

Two more people were reported to have died in that fire, known as the Woolsey, which now covers an area of 70,000 acres (28,000 hectares).

Among the towns under evacuation orders is Thousand Oaks, where a gunman killed 12 people in a rampage on Wednesday.

"The magnitude of the destruction of the fire is unbelievable and heartbreaking," said Mark Ghilarducci, of the California governor's office.

President Trump has responded by blaming what he called gross mismanagement of the forests and warned of funding cuts.

Meteorologists have warned that dangerous conditions may continue well into next week, but firefighters are hoping to take advantage of a temporary lull in the wind fanning the flames.

Where is the Woolsey Fire?

The blaze started on Thursday near Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles (64km) north-west of central Los Angeles. Another blaze, the Hill Fire, started at about the same time, also near Thousand Oaks.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption 'How much more can this town endure?' - deadly wildfire hits Thousand Oaks, where 12 people were killed in a mass shooting

On Friday, the flames jumped Highway 101 and headed into coastal areas.

All residents have been ordered to evacuate.

Los Angeles County sheriff's Chief John Benedict said on Saturday that two people had been found dead but provided no details on the deaths.

Malibu and nearby Calabasas are home to many celebrities.

The actor Martin Sheen was briefly reported missing but later found on the beach.

On Twitter, reality TV star Kim Kardashian said the home she shared with rapper Kanye West had been hit by the flames.

"Trying to get my mind off this fire... We are all safe and that's all that matters."

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Aerial footage shows fires racing up hillsides in Malibu towards abandoned homes

The singer Cher, who is performing in Las Vegas, tweeted that she was worried about her Malibu home.

Skip Twitter post by @cher I’m worried about my house🔥, but there is nothing I can do.

Friends houses have burned🙏🏻

I can’t bear the thought of there being no Malibu I’ve had a house in Malibu since 1972😭 — Cher (@cher) November 9, 2018 Report

The singer Lady Gaga said she had evacuated her home in Malibu, posting a video on Instagram that showed dark smoke billowing overhead.

Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro tweeted that he had evacuated, leaving behind his "Bleak House" museum collection of fantasy and horror memorabilia.

Skip Twitter post by @RealGDT Evacuated last night. Bleak House and the collection may be endangered but the gift of life remains. Thousand Oaks and Agoura are still in danger. Malibu is being evacuated. — Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) November 9, 2018 Report

The fire has also reportedly destroyed one of the sets for the TV series Westworld and is threatening Malibu's Pepperdine University, a private residential college with more than 7,000 students.

Firefighters have not managed to build containment barriers around the fire but hope to make some progress throughout Saturday.

Where is the Camp Fire?

The 20,000-acre (8,100-hectare) fire north of Sacramento started in the Plumas National Forest on Thursday and quickly engulfed the town of Paradise.

Residents fled for their lives as more than 6,700 homes and businesses were destroyed, making the fire the most destructive in the state's history. The flames moved so fast that some had to abandon their cars and escape the town on foot.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told a news conference on Friday that the remains of five victims were found in or near burnt-out cars. Three others were found outside homes and one inside a home.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The Camp Fire has been fuelled by strong winds and dry forest

He said another 35 people were missing and three firefighters had been injured.

"This event was the worst-case scenario," he said. "It was the event we have feared for a long time."

Rescuers used a bulldozer to push abandoned cars out of the way in order to reach a hospital and evacuate patients as the fire engulfed the building, Butte County Supervisor Doug Teeter said.

"There's nothing left standing," said Scott Maclean, the state's forestry and fire protection spokesman.

The fire has now been partially contained.

Driving through walls of flame

By the BBC's James Cook, Paradise in California

Paradise is hell. A smouldering, sepia world in ruins. The air is acrid. Burning chemicals leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

Walking among the ashes of people's lives is eerie and awful. There is a profound sadness here. We pass a child's charred swing, a swimming pool filled with filth, and worst of all, a pet dog which did not survive.

Such was the intensity of the blaze that much of the debris is hard to recognise. Wafers of ash are drifting down like enormous snowflakes, smothering sound.

But it is not quite silent here. A sooty squirrel scrambles up a blackened tree in a panic. There are booms and creaks from burning trees and telegraph poles.

And soon, going from ruin to ruin, there will be the sound of those with the hardest job of all, checking to see if anyone was left behind.

Fire officials have also issued evacuation notices for parts of Chico, a town of 93,000 people north of Sacramento.

The three blazes are among 16 currently active fires in California. Officials have put most of Northern California under a Red Flag Warning, which means "extreme fire behaviour" can occur within 24 hours.

The region has grappled with serious wildfires in recent years, including the worst in the state's history - the Mendocino fire in 2018.
At least 11 people have been killed and more than 150,000 evacuated as two big wildfires rage in California, the Camp Fire in Butte County and the Hill Fire in Ventura.