California's Most Devastating Wildfire in HISTORY Forces 250k to Evacuate Malibu
Nine people dead and thousands of homes are under threat
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California's most destructive fire in its history has left at least nine people dead, and thousands of homes are under threat as the 250,000 people are forced to evacuate Malibu to escape the inferno.
The Camp Fire in Northern California has been classed at the most destructive in state history, after turning the town of Paradise to a cinder.
Not a single resident can be seen anywhere in the town as the majority have evacuated.
Most of the buildings are now rubble as entire neighborhoods and businesses are wiped out.
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According to the DM: In a single day, this Sierra Nevada foothill town of 27,000 founded in the 1800s was primarily burned by fires that moved so fast there was nothing firefighters could do.
Authorities suspect a failure in power lines may have started it.
President Donald Trump on Friday evening approved an emergency statement announcing federal funds to support the battle against the Camp Fire and Southern California's Hill and Woolsey Fires.
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He later threatened to withhold federal payments to California, maintaining its forest management is 'so poor.'
Trump said via Twitter Saturday that 'there is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly fires in California.'
The president said 'billions of dollars are given each year, with multiple lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests.
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Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!'
More than 300,000 people from across the state have been forced to flee their homes, as the fast-moving flames from the three fires that all started on Thursday have raced to cover more than 200 square miles.
Whipped by the notorious Santa Ana winds gusting up to 60mph, the southern blazes have not yet killed or injured anyone, but have destroyed many homes and forced thousands to flee for their lives on short notice - including many celebrities who live in the wealthy coastal enclaves under threat.
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The larger of the two southern blazes, the Woolsey Fire, has scorched at least 35,000 acres north of Los Angeles since inflaming near Rocketdyne at around 2 pm local time Thursday, quickly spreading southwest toward Newbury Park and Thousand Oaks, the community still reeling from a mass shooting in a bar on Wednesday night.
The massive Woolsey Fire was a zero containment on Friday night, and dozens of communities on the border of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, as well as the beachside city of Malibu, were ordered to evacuate as the flames advanced
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On Friday night, the fire crossed the Pacific Coast Highway, moving straight up to the ocean's edge.
To the west of the Woolsey Fire a second, a smaller blaze dubbed the Hill Fire has torched almost 6,000 acres in Ventura County after igniting at around the same time in Hill Canyon on Thursday afternoon.
