Paradise lost: Before-and-after photos show a town devoured by a raging wildfire

Click through the gallery to see before and after photos of Paradise, Calif. after the Camp Fire. Click through the gallery to see before and after photos of Paradise, Calif. after the Camp Fire. Photo: Kurtis Alexander/Chronicle Photo: Kurtis Alexander/Chronicle Image 1 of / 139 Caption Close Paradise lost: Before-and-after photos show a town devoured by a raging wildfire 1 / 139 Back to Gallery

In less than 24 hours, a fast-moving Northern California wildfire exploded into a raging monster that devoured nearly an entire town 15 miles east of Chico.

The Camp Fire barreled through Paradise with towering flames, some rising 200 feet into the air, torching businesses, churches, a school, a gas station, a hospital and dozens of homes. Many of buildings are now piles of ash. Images in the gallery, including before-and-after-views, reveal the scale of the devastation and tragedy.

"This thing went crazy," said Josh Edelson, a photojournalist who captured the fire from the frontlines. "It exploded super fast. "Yesterday, pretty much the entire town of Paradise was on fire. Firefighters for the most part were just kind of letting it happen because the wind was blowing flames everywhere, and it was unstoppable."

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So far, the wildfire has killed 29 people. Some of the victims were found in burned vehicles. Many are still missing.

Twenty-five percent of the blaze was contained as of Monday morning. More than 113,000 acres have been scorched and an estimated 7,000 structures destroyed. Over 52,000 people have fled their homes.

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

The blaze started in the Feather River Canyon on the western edge of the Plumas National Forest at 6:30 a.m. and spread at a terrifying pace, leading acting Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a state of emergency. Within three hours, it had torn through 5,000 acres and reached Paradise, a town of about 27,000 residents.

The entire town was ordered evacuated, setting off a desperate exodus in which many motorists got struck 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.

McLean estimated that the lost buildings numbered in the thousands.

"Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed. It's that kind of devastation," he said.

With ash falling and the sky darkening to a menacing shade of black, evacuees from Paradise sat in stunned silence Friday outside a Chico church where they took refuge the night before. They all had harrowing tales of a slow-motion escape from a fire so close they could feel the heat inside their vehicles as they sat stuck in a terrifying traffic jam.

When the order came to evacuate, it was like the entire town decided to leave at once, they said. Fire surrounded the evacuation route, and drivers panicked. Some crashed and others left their vehicles by the roadside.

"It was just a wall of fire on each side of us, and we could hardly see the road in front of us," police officer Mark Bass said.

CalFire reports more than 4,000 firefighters and other personnel are involved in fighting the Camp Fire. Butte College, in Oroville, is serving as a staging area and strike teams from as far away as Oakland are on the scene.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.