Caught in the inferno: How the Camp Fire overwhelmed Paradise

It’s been just five days since the start of the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history. Already miles of land have been burned and thousands of homes reduced to rubble.

At least 42 people have been found dead; many of them were trapped in their cars while trying to escape the inferno.

This fast-moving fire didn’t come from nowhere. It is a product of recent fierce winds and months of unrelenting heat.

Autumn always heralds the arrival of California’s turbulent Santa Ana winds – a powerful seasonal breeze that sweeps hot, dry air across the state. These winds are historically associated with higher fire risk.

But climate change has compounded the danger by making California significantly hotter and drier. The state’s five warmest years on record have all occurred in the past five years. Paradise has received less than an inch of precipitation since May.

California is a virtual tinderbox.

The Camp Fire shows how quickly one spark can explode into catastrophic blaze.

6:33 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 8

California is under a red-flag warning – the highest fire alert.

A fire is reported among the trees along the Feather River, 150 miles north of Sacramento.

6:43 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 8

The first firefighters arrive at the scene to find the blaze being whipped up by powerful winds.

“This has got the potential for a major incident,” one firefighter told dispatch, according to radio transmissions reviewed by the Bay Area News Group.

Minutes later, the first evacuation orders are issued.

8:00 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 8

The fire jumps the Feather River and reaches Paradise, a retirement community of 26,000 people nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

“This fire is moving football-field lengths within seconds,” Cal Fire spokesman Scott McClean said.

12:02 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 8

Less than six hours after it was first reported, the Camp Fire has engulfed 1,000 acres of land.

12:38 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 8

Ash from the fire was so thick that it blocked the light of the sun, turning the fall day into a hellish night.

The single road out of Paradise is jammed with traffic as more than 20,000 people attempt to evacuate simultaneously.

“People were trapped for several hours,” McLean said. “You couldn’t go forward, you couldn't go back.”

Cell service is swiftly lost. Power lines fall like dominoes. Burning trees collapse onto clogged roads. Emergency officials temporarily gather cars into church parking lots to keep them out of harm’s way while routes out of town are cleared.

Asked if there’s any way to avoid this chaos, McLean said the evacuation orders were issued as fast as humanly possible.

The fire was simply faster.

Overnight Thursday

The Camp Fire burns through the towns of Paradise and Concow, obliterating thousands of homes.

In Paradise, a hospital is destroyed. Schools are reduced to rubble and embers. The business district is engulfed in flames.

Within 24 hours of starting, the Camp Fire is the most destructive fire in California history.

10 a.m., Friday, Nov. 9

The Camp Fire has spread to 70,000 acres and is only 5 percent contained. Already, 2,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been destroyed; another 15,000 are threatened.

7 a.m., Saturday, Nov. 10

The Camp Fire reaches 100,000 acres. More than 6,400 homes have been destroyed.

McLean said that breathtaking speed of the inferno is comparable to the Tubbs Fire, which burned through California wine country around this time last year. Both blazes were fanned by powerful winds, and both hit after summers of historic hot temperatures and prolonged drought.

California’s forests and chaparral are “fire-adapted landscapes” — they evolved to burn.

But Robert Rohde, the lead scientist for the climate nonprofit Berkeley Earth, said human fingerprints are evident on these fast-growing fires. “Most of the largest and most destructive wildfires in CA history have happened under such conditions,” he tweeted. “Climate change is making this situation worse.”

Evening, Sunday, Nov. 11

The death toll from the Camp Fire has grown to 42 people — more than the 1933 Griffith Park fire — making it the deadliest blaze in state history.

Many were found in the melted remains of cars; they had been engulfed as they tried desperately to outpace the fast-moving flames.

“I tell you, it’s very, very hard. In some cases, the fire burned so intensely that it burned everything to the ground, and in some cases it melted the metal. In those cases it is possible the temperatures were high enough to completely consume the body.”

Kory Honea, the Butte County Sheriff Honea, to the Chico-Enterprise record.

Monday, Nov. 12

Ten coroner search-and-recovery teams are working alongside anthropology researchers from multiple universities to seek out and identify remains.

More than 200 people are missing as of Monday.