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We are in the midst of a bushfire crisis tonight, the likes of which this state has

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never seen.

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Right now there are an unprecedented 17 fire fronts burning out of control at emergency

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level.

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The RFS believes people are trapped in their homes across multiple locations.

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Fierce fire is still burning at emergency level at Woodford.

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This fire is threatening homes south of the Great Western Highway and residents are being

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urged to seek shelter as this fire approaches.

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Wind is causing tough conditions for crews, embers being blown ahead of the fire front

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and they're also creating spot fires.

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Jane Azapati is with us now from RFS headquarters.

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Jane, there are fears now that people could actually be trapped inside their homes.

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That's right, dear, but multiple locations along the mid-North Coast we are hearing at

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At this stage, unconfirmed reports that there are people trapped inside homes and that

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fire crews are not able to reach these people.

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The advice for them is to stay inside, seek shelter inside and wait until the fire front

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passes and then when it has passed, try to get away from that structure if it is burning.

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It is very grim advice to pass on.

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While houses on the ground explode into fireballs.

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For all those who tried to escape that day, the drive out was terrifying.

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Roads were choked with traffic.

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The fire was spreading rapidly.

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Once she realized how bad it was, Christina tried calling 911 hoping firefighters could

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rescue her mom.

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Later that day, she started searching at the evacuation centers and reported her mother

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missing.

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Then a few days later, searchers found her remains.

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If that was a living room, they must have found her because they dug there.

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Just sitting in a living room.

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It's not yet clear how many people were trapped by the fire, but many of those who lived

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here were elderly and some couldn't make it out on their own.

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And the days after, boards were plastered with desperate pleas from family members.

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Many suspected hundreds were unaccounted for.

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When the official list came out, more than 1,000 names were on it.

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You know, there was a discussion.

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They talked about this.

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They said, Sheriff, if we put this out, you know, there's going to be, there's going

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to be big, there's going to be duplicate.

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It may, it may cause some people concern about the length of it.

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But I ultimately felt it was more important to get the information out.

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Some of the names were on there twice.

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Other entries are incomplete.

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Each day, the list swells and shrinks depending on who else is reported missing and who is

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found.

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Hundreds of searchers have fanned out across the unrecognizable neighborhoods, picking

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through the ash and rubble of the 13,000 buildings that were incinerated here.

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All of these properties were quickly searched after the fire, but now crews are taking a

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much more thorough look.

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And when they're done, they spray paint a marking on the driveway like this one.

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It says what time the crews were here and also whether or not there was a victim.

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Phyllis, you make your way up here.

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This is the tub and the shower.

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OK.

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And that looks like the upper piece of it right there in front of you.

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So I think there's a, that's a bed.

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Jason Detten and his team of volunteers came from Oregon to help out.

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They're focused on searching what were bedrooms and living rooms, places where people were

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likely to be.

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So since we can't sift through everything, we're looking for the high probability areas.

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And how does this compare to what your team would normally search?

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Normally we're looking for a missing person out in the woods that's alive.

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So this is drastically different than what we're normally used to looking for.

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Even if it's a person that's no longer alive, not of this scale, we have no idea what,

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how many or what will be out here.

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So this is a big eye opener.

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We brought 12 volunteers down here and they'll all be changed when we get back.

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They then look at them today.

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She feels consumed with guilt.

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You know, it was terrible to think how, you know, dying in flames and I could have stayed

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longer and waited.

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It was just really awful.

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Her mother, one of the many victims in what is now the deadliest fire ever in California.

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And that list will almost certainly grow as crews go lot by lot picking through what

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once were homes and are now the site of a grim search.

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And once again, I'm going to play the start of the Paradise Police Dispatcher recording

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the morning of the event, telling people to stay and not leave, keeping them in homes.

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Are we supposed to be evacuated or what?

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No, you'll be notified.

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There's a fire north of Conkow, up off Highway 70.

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No danger to Paradise, okay?

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What is that?

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Evacuation west side of Pence Road.

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What says that?

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Fire.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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We haven't been advised of that.

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If you have gotten a phone call or if you feel the flames or feel the need to leave,

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then do that at this time.

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But we haven't been notified, okay?

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The emergency planners had divided the town into 14 zones.

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They would be evacuated in turn, depending on where the fire came from.

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18 minutes after fire entered the town.

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We've just issued mandatory evacuations for the entire town of Paradise.

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I don't think anybody envisioned that happening.

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In the future, the city of Malibu is creating zones for evacuation so that rather than calling

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for everybody to leave at the exact same time, they can call zone one and zone two.

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And then a few hours later, they can have other zones so that the highway is not going to be overwhelmed.

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If they weren't signed up, they weren't going to get alert on their mobile devices,

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on their text messages or for their emails.

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But they would have had you out, activated the other system.

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That's true.

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Sonoma emergency manager opted out of activating mass cell phone alert for evacuations.

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Sonoma County never activated a mass cell phone alert that could have warned hundreds of thousands of people

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the community to evacuate their homes during Monday's deadly fire, saving many lives, I might add as well.

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Sonoma County officials said they worried it would have caused confusion,

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but the Bay Area units learned the emergency personnel in Lake Marin and Orange counties

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all use the emergency wireless system to inform thousands of residents about evacuations in their counties.

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Upgraded to the SOCO alert system that was activated in July of 2016.

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The short answer for people who wonder, you know, if they're asking why didn't you use the broader alert, what do you say?

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The short answer is that 500,000 simultaneous phone calls is not an appropriate way to do effective evacuation alerts and warning.

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But the people in Coffee Park, in Mark West Estates, in Fountain Grove and beyond, many of those people told us they didn't get the alert.

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Are you saying that's because they weren't signed up for the proper alert?

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I can't answer that question. I don't know if individual people got the alert or not.

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I'm telling you, they didn't.

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And so, and I'm saying, what I'm trying to say is that if they weren't signed up,

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they weren't going to get alert on their mobile devices, on their text messages or for their emails.

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But they would have had you activated the other system.

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That's true. That's true.

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And you decided not to.

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I think I've justified my reasons. I think I've made my professional assessment.

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I think I think I'm in I think we're in a position where we use the tools that we thought would be most effective to get at the people.

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People didn't receive the alert. It was a very quick, fast moving event. We did the best we could.

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No, you did not do the best. No, sir. You cost many, many lives because you did not do your job.

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Maybe you were told to stand down, but you need to go on trial, sir.

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San Reza residents from Fountain Grove to Coffee Park told similar stories from neighbors, law enforcement, smoke and fire at their doorsteps.

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I never got an alert asked about the decision.

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Notice the guy's name, Christopher Hellgren.

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Hellgren grinning through hell, folks, just with Joe Fryer.

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Hellgren, along with emergency coordinator, were both out of the area when they notified to the farms.

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He said he did not realize the magnitude until 6 a.m.

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Gee, 4 a.m. I got a call from my neighbor banging on my door and I got out.

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Why couldn't this guy get notified?

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Huh? Oh, man, he said the 500,000 residents could have caused a traffic jam.

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Give me a break. Sonoma County is a broad area.

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People were getting out anyway.

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Nothing left as that fire was fast approaching on Sunday night, neighbors turned into first responders going door to door to make sure everyone was safe.

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It's devastating. It literally looks like a bomb went off.

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When Heather Bowers saw ash raining down in her front yard Sunday night, she became the neighborhood emergency alert system.

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They were like, what's going on? I'm like, you need to pack up your stuff and get out.

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Bowers' mother and two brothers lost their homes, her mother escaping with only the clothes she was wearing.

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Did anybody get any warnings?

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No.

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Many people in the danger zones were caught by surprise and needed help getting out.

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LV3, trapped at 385, I would say close.

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Any units available to stop at 2322 at repeat, they called advising their houses on fire and needing assistance evacuating.

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But communication problems in general have been difficult.

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Sonoma County Sheriff Roger Dono says alerts were sent out, but admits not everyone would have gotten them.

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Okay, all throughout town there's multiple car pilots.

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And you're a tow truck driver?

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Yeah.

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And so you've been seeing these cars because you're going up there to Paradise?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Yeah, there's so many personnel up there, so many emergency personnel.

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Nothing but?

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There's nothing, everything up there is everything but local cops. There's no local cops up there.

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Paradise Police?

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I don't think so. I haven't seen any.

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But we got a voice telling us that the sheriff that drove by, he was from Berryville or Yuba County or something like that.

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Yeah.

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And we're like, man, how'd they get in your service? I mean, they had to be everywhere down the hill, in traffic and...

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Let's do the math. If the fire starts at 630, 730 in the morning, let's say, and now it's 11 o'clock, you're saying you're leaving? Is that right?

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Yeah.

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All right.

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So that's three hours to get from Yuba City that they're going to be able to alert to call to bring sheriffs in there? Are you kidding me?

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Yep. I've never seen it so well set up. I mean, they had sheriff's flags and everywhere. They go this way, they go that way, and every right.

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They literally directed us. We couldn't go anywhere near to go. We had to go. They directed all the traffic from our end of the area.

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From Clarks to Oroville.

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From Clarks to Oroville, they shut the highway 99 down and wouldn't let us get on to go to Chico.

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We had to go out to Oroville and go all the way around through...

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And those little towns could get to Chico because they shut off the online. They wouldn't let us get on on 99.

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Why?

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I don't know.

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What's the name of the place?

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Terminal cleaner?

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No, I got 10 here.

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Pull over. Can we get on to it?

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Rockhouse Restaurant.

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What?

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Rockhouse Restaurant.

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Were you here when it happened?

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No. The firemen forced me out of my house at 3 a.m. in the morning. They drove out behind me and it burned a couple hours later.

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Wait. The fires didn't start until 6.30.

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No, it took in the next morning, Friday morning.

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So you stayed here when it started.

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See, the fire was going pretty fast. But this way to the south, it was going slower than a baby crawls.

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They could have easily stopped it at Deadwood or Dunn here, Dogwood. There was a number of places they could have stopped it.

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I'm sorry, man. Can we help at all? We got clothes, we got food. Do you need anything?

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We've gotten lots of that from donation centers. I appreciate it.

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Why didn't they come help you?

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What's that?

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Why didn't they come help you if they could have put it out?

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I don't know. But when they forced me out at 3 a.m., I drive down to where the hardware store is, two miles down the road.

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There's 50 engines lined up in a neat route. It's shit in there dark. Multiple dowsers, nobody around.

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While the fires are burning? Was the road passable here? It looked like this was hell to get down here.

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Well, Friday morning, yeah. The fire didn't come through the pass up there until about 6 o'clock.

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In the morning?

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Uh-huh.

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So Thursday morning, it started at 6.30. Paradise got torched at 8.30 in the morning.

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And that's down below here. So the campfire, they're saying it started at Polga.

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Paradise is last.

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Okay, gotcha.

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And it was moving last pretty fast. But this way, from the fire, it was south, and it was just crawling.

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And they had bulldozers down below the road here, and they didn't bring them up the hill?

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Two miles down the highway. They had a row of 25 parked through the middle of the highway, another row of 25 parked off the side.

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They had all sorts of equipment. None of it ever got used.

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I went down the wrong side of the highway.

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Well, we're told that the people were being held up as late as 11 o'clock in the morning of leaving Skyway.

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They had one lane. They wouldn't let anybody. This gal was out of gas.

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Yeah.

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So they...

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Yeah, they tried to stop me and tried to turn me around.

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I believe the cops let me, told me to go ahead and go by because you see my firefighter plate on my truck.

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For some reason, that's just the only thing I could think of because he was standing in front of my truck making me stop and stop all the traffic behind me.

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And they were trying to get out and run or go turn around or something.

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And I was like, I'm going. I know what's going to happen. I can't go turn around, go back, do anything, or stop.

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I kept going down that. I knew which way I had to go.

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We were evacuating out on the street.

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And so how did you get out? Because I heard the people that day were saying they were stuck in paradise.

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They couldn't get out to like those that got out. They were at five, six o'clock at night.

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I was standing past them while they were burning their cars.

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And were they all stuck in a line? It seemed like everybody was just waiting.

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Some of them were warm, most of them were running.

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Because the cars got too hot, I heard.

225
00:15:36,700 --> 00:15:41,700
I don't know. It's hard to explain.

226
00:15:41,700 --> 00:15:48,700
And every time I talk about it, Facebook shuts me down.

227
00:15:48,700 --> 00:15:51,700
Now, the fire started around 4 p.m. yesterday afternoon.

228
00:15:51,700 --> 00:15:58,700
And neighbors told me this fire swept through the mountains in a snap, not leaving any time for firefighters to get to this community.

229
00:15:58,700 --> 00:16:02,700
You couldn't see the fire. All you saw was the smoke coming in.

230
00:16:02,700 --> 00:16:07,700
And then you felt the heat and you knew the fire was on you.

231
00:16:07,700 --> 00:16:12,700
Two doors down, neighbors say an elderly couple were inside.

232
00:16:12,700 --> 00:16:17,700
The woman was bedridden and the man stayed with her as long as he could until the fire was there.

233
00:16:17,700 --> 00:16:23,700
Neighbors then said that he came out of the home and had burns all over, including over his face.

234
00:16:23,700 --> 00:16:25,700
Now, I just spoke with...

235
00:16:25,700 --> 00:16:32,700
But I put together all the victims' testimonies, not all of them, a lot of them, interviews and what they had in common, their common threads.

236
00:16:32,700 --> 00:16:38,700
And the common threads that you'll hear about, no evacuations orders were given the day of the fire.

237
00:16:38,700 --> 00:16:43,700
Blocked by nonlocal police from leaving the day of the fires, not many got out, most perished.

238
00:16:43,700 --> 00:16:47,700
The fire trucks stood down, no winds the morning of the fire.

239
00:16:47,700 --> 00:16:51,700
PG&E set up a massive staging area the weeks before the fires.

240
00:16:51,700 --> 00:16:56,700
And so did FEMA out at the Chico airport. And look at this, they're calling this a forced fire.

241
00:16:56,700 --> 00:17:01,700
They can justify it. Again, they were not notified. No people were notified.

242
00:17:01,700 --> 00:17:06,700
The only way they got out was through Facebook or through friends calling and saying, get out.

243
00:17:06,700 --> 00:17:12,700
But many maybe had their LoJack or OnStar turned over where they were pulled over to the sides of the road.

244
00:17:12,700 --> 00:17:18,700
You know, their testimony, many had to get out of their cars and walk because that's what the police were telling them to do.

245
00:17:18,700 --> 00:17:21,700
Well, why were they having to get out of their cars and walk?

246
00:17:21,700 --> 00:17:30,700
In my head, I really need to leave because they said, you know, the evacuation orders, mandatory orders, you know, evacuate.

247
00:17:30,700 --> 00:17:36,700
Wait, wait, wait, wait. So did evacuation orders come? Because most people say they got no evacuation orders.

248
00:17:36,700 --> 00:17:47,700
No, it was a warning at first. But like I said, by that time, I was already done packing my shit and telling the neighbors to leave immediately or they're going to die.

249
00:17:47,700 --> 00:17:53,700
You know, they're going to die. You know, they all know I'm a firefighter, you know, a big red truck, you know, firefighter truck.

250
00:17:53,700 --> 00:18:00,700
And, you know, they know who I am. So one guy was out there trying to, he had a leaf blower trying to blow all the shit off.

251
00:18:00,700 --> 00:18:06,700
And I was like, dude, this is going to go. And you're, you know, you don't want to be around here. You know, what happens.

252
00:18:06,700 --> 00:18:11,700
And then, hey, you football filled the minute, dude. It didn't take me long to get out to that road.

253
00:18:11,700 --> 00:18:15,700
And then, you know, shit started getting really bad.

254
00:18:15,700 --> 00:18:22,700
Move forward in front of this, there was a red barn kind of in front of this mobile home park.

255
00:18:22,700 --> 00:18:31,700
And then try to just stop for like, I don't know, 30, 45 minutes about that.

256
00:18:31,700 --> 00:18:41,700
And I started hearing that people in that mobile park were still around their homes, their cars.

257
00:18:41,700 --> 00:18:48,700
And the traffic was so jammed that they couldn't pull away from their homes because the traffic went all the way back to their home.

258
00:18:48,700 --> 00:18:54,700
And they couldn't come down the driveway to get out onto the road and get away from their houses, which were on fire.

259
00:18:54,700 --> 00:19:17,700
The flames started slowly catching up to our cars and the there was a Pepsi truck back behind us that started unloading all their stuff with the plan of possibly having people load up in there and then having like air drops drop on us as a last-ditch effort to keep us alive, basically.

260
00:19:17,700 --> 00:19:22,700
Fortunately, they attempted to make a run for Skyway.

261
00:19:22,700 --> 00:19:39,700
And so the group ahead of me tried to go down Skyway to get out, which allowed me to move forward up until about the fact that I was like across from this fast trip.

262
00:19:39,700 --> 00:19:47,700
And but unfortunately, the people that went on Skyway to get out, that excursion failed.

263
00:19:47,700 --> 00:19:52,700
They ended up having to abandon their vehicles and then being ushered back by the firemen.

264
00:19:52,700 --> 00:19:57,700
And at that point, they basically told us we were surrounded by fire.

265
00:19:57,700 --> 00:20:00,700
We were not going anywhere in our cars.

266
00:20:00,700 --> 00:20:01,700
We are not escaping.

267
00:20:01,700 --> 00:20:04,700
We just have to sit put.

268
00:20:04,700 --> 00:20:17,700
And so they locked off the parking lot that's being put in with the Optimo and the cafe they were building.

269
00:20:17,700 --> 00:20:19,700
It wasn't yet complete.

270
00:20:19,700 --> 00:20:20,700
And they've locked that off.

271
00:20:20,700 --> 00:20:31,700
Everyone just got out of their cars, left their cars in the road and then went to that parking lot as a last-ditch effort place to just make our stand and hopefully we wouldn't burn to death.

272
00:20:34,700 --> 00:20:36,700
I know this is really a hard question.

273
00:20:36,700 --> 00:20:39,700
How long you lived in paradise?

274
00:20:39,700 --> 00:20:42,700
For about a year, year and a half.

275
00:20:42,700 --> 00:20:44,700
And?

276
00:20:44,700 --> 00:20:46,700
My roommate died at my house.

277
00:20:46,700 --> 00:20:47,700
Oh, gosh.

278
00:20:47,700 --> 00:20:49,700
I'm so sorry.

279
00:20:49,700 --> 00:20:50,700
Yeah, she didn't get out.

280
00:20:50,700 --> 00:20:54,700
She went back to get her cats into it.

281
00:20:54,700 --> 00:20:57,700
She went back to get her cats and that will cost her her life?

282
00:20:57,700 --> 00:20:59,700
Yeah.

283
00:20:59,700 --> 00:21:01,700
Oh, my gosh.

284
00:21:01,700 --> 00:21:07,700
How many people do you know got out that you personally have talked to that got out of there?

285
00:21:07,700 --> 00:21:09,700
Very few.

286
00:21:09,700 --> 00:21:16,700
How many do you know that you personally know that you haven't heard from six weeks later?

287
00:21:16,700 --> 00:21:21,700
I don't know. At least a couple hundred.

288
00:21:21,700 --> 00:21:26,700
Why isn't there more people asking where everybody is?

289
00:21:26,700 --> 00:21:27,700
I don't know.

290
00:21:27,700 --> 00:21:29,700
I don't know if there are many people that got out.

291
00:21:29,700 --> 00:21:32,700
I just don't know.

292
00:21:32,700 --> 00:21:35,700
And they were just there were multiple companies.

293
00:21:35,700 --> 00:21:37,700
We saw about probably four or five.

294
00:21:37,700 --> 00:21:41,700
None of the police or sheriffs that we saw were locals.

295
00:21:41,700 --> 00:21:42,700
That's what we heard.

296
00:21:42,700 --> 00:21:44,700
It was all militarized police.

297
00:21:44,700 --> 00:21:52,700
Yeah, we talked to this private military and actually as we were coming back, so we realized, okay, this is the paradise.

298
00:21:52,700 --> 00:21:54,700
We've got to go.

299
00:21:54,700 --> 00:22:03,700
And as we were driving back, a convoy actually we pulled over and they passed us and we saw behind them.

300
00:22:03,700 --> 00:22:15,700
And it turned out that convoy that was in front of us right past our street, right at the Paradise City Limits Line, they blocked the road off.

301
00:22:15,700 --> 00:22:20,700
Every time that we've been through, we've been in that house for 11 years.

302
00:22:20,700 --> 00:22:33,700
And every time there's been a fire, Pence Road is packed and it takes hours and hours to get out.

303
00:22:33,700 --> 00:22:35,700
That's what you mean.

304
00:22:35,700 --> 00:22:42,700
And because there's Pence Road, Clark Road, and Skyway that you're supposed to use to exit.

305
00:22:42,700 --> 00:22:43,700
Right.

306
00:22:43,700 --> 00:22:49,700
And because they blocked it right at the city limits, when we left, it was almost at what, 1130?

307
00:22:49,700 --> 00:22:51,700
Yeah, we left at about 1130.

308
00:22:51,700 --> 00:22:52,700
It was 1130.

309
00:22:52,700 --> 00:23:00,700
And when we left, I could have drove 100 miles an hour all the way down the hill because there was no other cars.

310
00:23:00,700 --> 00:23:06,700
Wait, so from that point, guys were parked on Skyway until like 5 o'clock at night and couldn't go anywhere?

311
00:23:06,700 --> 00:23:08,700
Correct.

312
00:23:08,700 --> 00:23:13,700
So why was Pence Road blocked?

313
00:23:13,700 --> 00:23:15,700
Why weren't they using it to exit?

314
00:23:15,700 --> 00:23:26,700
And when we got down, pass Line Saddle, where Durham Pence and Pence Road meet, which will then take you, if you take Durham Pence, it connects to Clark.

315
00:23:26,700 --> 00:23:27,700
Right.

316
00:23:27,700 --> 00:23:29,700
They had that blocked.

317
00:23:29,700 --> 00:23:39,700
And the only reason they let us through is because our daughter's car was almost out of gas and we couldn't go down 70 to Orville to get out.

318
00:23:39,700 --> 00:23:49,700
We had to take the Durham Pence Road and go to the corner at Clark and Durham Pence, where that gas station was, and get gas for her.

319
00:23:49,700 --> 00:23:50,700
So they let you through.

320
00:23:50,700 --> 00:23:53,700
So they let you through the blockage.

321
00:23:53,700 --> 00:23:54,700
They escorted us through.

322
00:23:54,700 --> 00:23:55,700
Yeah.

323
00:23:55,700 --> 00:23:56,700
They escorted us, actually.

324
00:23:56,700 --> 00:23:58,700
Actually, we got to the traffic jam.

325
00:23:58,700 --> 00:24:00,700
They said, OK, well, wait here in line.

326
00:24:00,700 --> 00:24:04,700
Just keep turning your car off and, you know, break up.

327
00:24:04,700 --> 00:24:05,700
Excuse me, ladies.

328
00:24:05,700 --> 00:24:07,700
I need to ask this question, Sharon and Susan.

329
00:24:07,700 --> 00:24:08,700
Excuse me.

330
00:24:08,700 --> 00:24:19,700
But CBS News, The Guardian, The New York Times, they're saying 52,000 people evacuated.

331
00:24:19,700 --> 00:24:20,700
I don't believe it.

332
00:24:20,700 --> 00:24:22,700
I don't think so.

333
00:24:22,700 --> 00:24:25,700
How can they evacuate if it's blocked from getting out?

334
00:24:25,700 --> 00:24:33,700
If Pence Road, which is the upper bench of paradise, you can't get out there and it's blocked, how are they going to get out?

335
00:24:33,700 --> 00:24:37,700
And there wasn't many cars down before we stopped from Orville and Durham Pence.

336
00:24:37,700 --> 00:24:41,700
There wasn't many down there either.

337
00:24:41,700 --> 00:24:46,700
There wasn't many cars at all down there.

338
00:24:46,700 --> 00:24:54,700
And what's interesting, too, is that gas station, I ended up, he had no power.

339
00:24:54,700 --> 00:24:55,700
Yeah, no power.

340
00:24:55,700 --> 00:24:56,700
He had no power.

341
00:24:56,700 --> 00:25:06,700
There were two TV trucks parked out front of this gas station and they were just working on the power poles, but they had turned his power off.

342
00:25:06,700 --> 00:25:10,700
And then, you know, we didn't leave power up in paradise, but they had to use his power off.

343
00:25:10,700 --> 00:25:12,700
So he could have pumped gas.

344
00:25:12,700 --> 00:25:16,700
And he was very kind and let me leave my car there.

345
00:25:16,700 --> 00:25:20,700
And we just left it and I wrote the then note.

346
00:25:20,700 --> 00:25:22,700
Briar joins us now for more.

347
00:25:22,700 --> 00:25:26,700
Briar, given what you've seen in paradise, what really stands out for you?

348
00:25:26,700 --> 00:25:29,700
Well, Adrienne, really just the sheer level of destruction.

349
00:25:29,700 --> 00:25:33,700
In a town of 26,000, 13,000 buildings were destroyed.

350
00:25:33,700 --> 00:25:35,700
So nearly everybody is now homeless.

351
00:25:35,700 --> 00:25:38,700
People are living in tents at the Walmart, at the Fairground.

352
00:25:38,700 --> 00:25:43,700
You have families of five or six cramped in a single motel room and now trying to figure out just what's next.

353
00:25:43,700 --> 00:25:50,700
And of course, the other thing is all of the uncertainty around the death toll and just how high it could be.

354
00:25:50,700 --> 00:25:56,700
And it's really hard to understate all of the confusion around the number of people still missing.

355
00:25:56,700 --> 00:26:00,700
A lot of people have been putting up posts online looking for their relatives.

356
00:26:00,700 --> 00:26:04,700
And I spoke with one woman who said she received a message from someone that her aunt had been found.

357
00:26:04,700 --> 00:26:06,700
So obviously a lot of relief there.

358
00:26:06,700 --> 00:26:09,700
But then she found out a few hours later that that person was wrong.

359
00:26:09,700 --> 00:26:10,700
Her aunt was still missing.

360
00:26:10,700 --> 00:26:15,700
So that miscommunication and confusion really just makes a terrible situation.

361
00:26:15,700 --> 00:26:16,700
All that much worse.

362
00:26:16,700 --> 00:26:18,700
You know, it's so interesting to get your perspective on this, Briar.

363
00:26:18,700 --> 00:26:20,700
You've covered wildfires like this before.

364
00:26:20,700 --> 00:26:24,700
You were in Fort McMurray when fire tore through that city.

365
00:26:24,700 --> 00:26:27,700
How does the situation in paradise compare?

366
00:26:27,700 --> 00:26:30,700
Well, there's no doubt that the fire in Fort McMurray was devastating.

367
00:26:30,700 --> 00:26:34,700
But really what happened in paradise was worse on every single level.

368
00:26:34,700 --> 00:26:36,700
Think of the evacuation in Fort McMurray.

369
00:26:36,700 --> 00:26:41,700
Ninety thousand people were able to leave the city and no one died as they left Fort McMurray.

370
00:26:41,700 --> 00:26:43,700
Well, in paradise, that certainly didn't happen.

371
00:26:43,700 --> 00:26:45,700
We don't know how many people didn't make it out.

372
00:26:45,700 --> 00:26:50,700
But we do know some people had to abandon their cars and try to outrun the fire on foot.

373
00:26:50,700 --> 00:26:54,700
In Fort McMurray, a lot of people were certain that they were going to rebuild.

374
00:26:54,700 --> 00:26:58,700
Some of the folks I've been speaking with in paradise say that they're not sure that they want to go back.

375
00:26:58,700 --> 00:27:00,700
Not only is the town nearly destroyed,

376
00:27:00,700 --> 00:27:04,700
but they don't want to move back into neighborhoods where there's been so much death, Adrienne.

377
00:27:04,700 --> 00:27:06,700
Okay, Briar, thanks very much.

378
00:27:06,700 --> 00:27:08,700
Briar Stewart in California tonight.

379
00:27:08,700 --> 00:27:12,700
And that fire crews are not able to reach these people.

380
00:27:12,700 --> 00:27:19,700
The advice for them is to stay inside, seek shelter inside, and wait until the fire front passes.

381
00:27:19,700 --> 00:27:24,700
And then when it has passed, try to get away from that structure if it is burning.

382
00:27:24,700 --> 00:27:27,700
It is very grim advice to pass on.