This was the scene in Westlake Village, in California, on Sunday. The suburb is located in Thousand Oaks, just a few miles from where last week’s mass shooting took place
Homeowners have been allowed to return to their properties in Thousand Oaks, but many found them completely destroyed
A telegraph pole has partly collapsed after being damaged by the flame which torched the neighboring building in Malibu
The map above shows the three major fires currently alight burning in California, two in the south and one in the north
One of the fire’s victims was an ailing woman whose body was found in bed in a burned-out house in Concow, near Paradise.
Ellen Walker, who was in her early 70s, was home alone when the fire struck on Thursday, according to Nancy Breeding, a family friend.
Breeding said Walker’s husband was at work and called a neighbor to tell his wife to evacuate, but she was on medication and might not have been alert.
A total of four victims killed by the Camp Fire have been identified since Sunday. Officials stand over human remains at a burned-out home destroyed by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California
He assumed she had escaped the inferno and was trying to find her at rescue centers until authorities confirmed her death late Friday.
‘Yesterday a fireman took him to the house to confirm, she apparently died in bed,’ Breeding said.
‘This is a devastating thing, and it’s happening to so many people,’ she added.
Butte County Sheriff Cory Honea identified three more victims on Monday.
Ernest Foss, 54, of Paradise, Jesus Fernandez, 48, of Concow, and Carl Wiley, 77, of Magalia, were identified as victims.
Officials said the wildfires may intensify due to the strong winds as more than 8,000 firefighters continue to battle the deadly infernos.
Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said Sunday evening that wind gusts up to 50mph are expected to continue through Tuesday.
Those conditions are similar to when the fire started Thursday and quickly destroyed the town of Paradise.
Huge plumes of smoke rose in the fire area, which stretches miles from the northwest corner of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley to the Malibu coast.
Airplanes and helicopters swooped low over hills and canyons to drop loads of fire retardant and water.
A one-day lull in the dry, northeasterly winds ended at midmorning.
‘Sadly, with these winds, it’s not over yet,’ Scott Jalbert, chief of Cal Fire’s San Luis Obispo Unit, said Sunday morning.
Cal Fire spokesman Bill Murphy warned that gusty winds predicted into Tuesday could spark ‘explosive fire behavior.
The lull allowed firefighters to gain 10 percent control of the Woolsey Fire, which has burned more than 130 square miles in western Los Angeles County and southeastern Ventura County since Thursday.
Osby stressed there were numerous hotspots and plenty of fuel that had not yet burned, but at sunset, he said there had been huge successes despite ‘a very challenging day’.
The count of destroyed homes remained at 177 but it was expected to increase when an update is reported on Monday.
Firefighters stand over human remains found at a burned-out home at the Camp Fire on Sunday
Officials said the wildfires may intensify due to strong Santa Ana winds as more than 8,000 firefighters continue to battle the deadly infernos
The winds returned to Southern California on Sunday, causing flare-ups of a huge wildfire that has scorched a string of communities (pictured) west of Los Angeles, but no additional structures were believed to have been lost, authorities said
Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said Sunday evening that wind gusts up to 50mph are expected to continue through Tuesday. Those conditions are similar to when the fire started Thursday and quickly destroyed the town of Paradise
Housing remains to sit empty days after the Camp Fire swept through the town of Paradise
The fire’s cause remains under investigation but Southern California Edison reported to the California Public Utilities Commission that there was an outage on an electrical circuit near where it started as Santa Ana winds blew through the region.
SoCal Edison said the report was submitted out of an abundance of caution although there was no indication from fire officials that its equipment may have been involved.
The report said the fire was reported around 2.24 pm on Thursday, two minutes after the outage.
Venture County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen hadn’t heard about the Edison report. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out that winds caused equipment failure that sparked a fire, he said.
Spot fires continued to occur late Sunday afternoon near the Malibu campus of Pepperdine University, where 3,500 students were sheltering in place.
The university said it was closing the Malibu campus as well as its Calabasas campus to the north until November 26 but classes would be remotely administered online and through email.