California wildfires: Satellite photo shows Paradise, Magalia burning

A
satellite view of Paradise, California, on November 8,
2018.

NASA
Earth Observatory

• The Camp Fire is now the most destructive and deadliest
  California wildfire in the
  state’s history.
• It scorched the entire town of Paradise, which was home
  to about 27,000 people.
• Satellites orbiting the Earth took pictures of Paradise
  and the nearby town of Magalia before the fire hit and while
  the area burned.

Paradise used to be a small town in the foothills of California’s
Sierra Nevada mountains with a population of about 27,000 people.
That is,
until Friday.

Within about 24 hours after the Camp Fire broke out, practically
all of Paradise had burned to the ground, along with much of a
nearby town called Magalia.

Below are two satellite views of Paradise and Magalia, where
about 11,000 people were
living. The towns are located about 100 miles north of Sacramento
(California’s capital city). The northern flank of Paradise is
shown on the bottom-left of each picture, and Magalia at the
center.

The first image, in which everything appears normal, was
taken by the commercial satellite imaging company DigitalGlobe on
September 10. The second picture was taken from space on Friday,
right as the Camp Fire was
tearing through the region. (Click and drag the slide bar up
and down to compare the two photos.)

“We started with nothing once, and we can do it again,” Paradise
resident Eleanor Southwick, 78,
told INSIDER’s Kelly McLaughlin on Friday. “We still have our
family and friends and that’s the thing that’s important.”

Some who lived in the area hope to return and rebuild, but other
families have not been so lucky.

So far the wildfire has killed at least 42 people, some of them
inside or near cars as they tried to flee. 

The
Camp Fire left behind burned cars on the side of a road in
Paradise, California.

Stephen
Lam/Reuters

The sheriff’s office in Butte County (in which Magalia and
Paradise are located) reportedly estimated on Monday that
228 people from the area are
still missing.

A
burned car in Paradise, California.

Sharon
Bernstein/Reuters

The Camp Fire began mid-week as a relatively small dozen-acre
blaze. But 50 mph gusts of wind in
unseasonably warm, dry weather blew its hot embers far and
wide. At one point, the fire was expanding at a rate of about
80 football fields per minute.

By Tuesday morning, the wildfire had gobbled up more than 125,000
acres of land, more than 6,500 homes, and 260 businesses.

Wreckage
from the Camp Fire in Paradise, California.

Stephen
Lam/Reuters

This makes the Camp Fire the most destructive and most deadly
wildfire California’s recorded history.