Ron Bernier, who has been breeding and training Labrador retrievers since 1989, says he's been replaying in his mind over and over what happened early Monday morning, when a fire broke out in his family's dog kennel, near Wasilla.

32 adult dogs escape the fire, but Bernier says 46 puppies that had been moved from the family's home to the kennel just two days before the fire, all died in the blaze.

Bernier says he was alerted to the fire at 1 a.m., when one of his children yelled that the kennel was on fire. "I just ran out of the house, trying to get to the kennel. I didn't even have shoes on. I was just in my stockings. The whole roof was on fire," he says.

Bernier says he tried repeatedly to enter the kennel, but flames, thick smoke and heat drove him back. He suffered burns on his arms and smoke inhalation.

It's another setback from a family already dealing with a difficult situation. "I was going to take and rebuild the kennels this summer and put up a new building and stuff," Bernier says, "But in May, I found out I have lymphoma, so that's kind of a game changer."

Lisa Carpenter, a veterinarian technician, put out an appeal for help, after hearing about the fire, even though she had never met the Bernier family.

"I kinda hoped that two or three would show up. You never know if they're actually going to make it, but there were probably 30 to 50 people throughout the night that showed up and gave us a hand," Carpenter says.

Tuesday afternoon, several friends and neighbors were at the family's home to help Ron Bernier, his wife, Jonnie, and their nine children begin the heartbreaking task of removing the debris from the fire. Pete Byrne, a family friend, says, "It's a tragedy. I mean the loss of the kennel [and] the disruption of their lives. It's something nobody feels good about."

Matt Hardwig, the chief animal control and care officer for the Mat Su Borough, says the Berniers were properly licensed to operate their kennel.

Chief John Fairchild of the West Lakes Fire Dept. says the cause of the fire is still under investigation. </s> CAPE TOWN - Nine people have lost their lives as a result of separate fires across Cape Town.

Three people, including a young boy, died after a fire broke out in their home in Philippi.

In Wesbank, an informal settlement near Kuilsriver, a family of four died in a fire that destroyed three structures.

In Imizamo Yethu, near Hout Bay, two people lost their lives after a devastating fire destroyed hundreds of structures.

The city’s Charlotte Powell says officials are ensuring all displaced residents are safe.

“Disaster management is on scene with other city services busy with rehabilitation processes. Our NGO partner, the South African Red Cross, is providing humanitarian relief. Emergency sheltering has been activated, community halls have been made available in surrounding areas.”

While relief efforts are underway to assist residents affected by a devastating fire in Imizamo Yethu, several organisations are trying to help their pets.

The fire, which broke out last night in Mandela Park, has destroyed at least 650 shacks.

The Domestic Animal Rescue Group (DARG) along with other organisations, like the SPCA and Animal Welfare Society, has rescued 70 dogs and six cats from the fire.

DARG’s facility, which is down the road from Mandela Park, is packed to capacity with frightened animals - several of whom have burn wounds.

The facility manager Ryno Engelbrecht says they're in need of food, water and kennels to house the dogs.

“We need cages to house and transport the dogs in, blankets, food and we need sterilised water for burn victims.”

The fire has since been contained and mop up operations are underway.

Affected residents will be temporarily housed in community halls on Saturday night. </s> Holding out slim hope as crews search for more fire dead; 42 already killed in blaze

More than a dozen coroner search and recovery teams looked for human remains from a Northern California wildfire that killed at least 42 — making it the deadliest in state history — as anxious relatives visited shelters and called police hoping to find loved ones alive.

Lisa Jordan drove 600 miles (1,000 kilometres) from Yakima, Washington, to search for her uncle, Nick Clark, and his wife, Anne Clark, of Paradise, California. Anne Clark suffers from multiple sclerosis and is unable to walk. No one knows if they were able to evacuate, or even if their house still exists, she said.

“I’m staying hopeful,” she said. “Until the final word comes, you keep fighting against it.”

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea updated the confirmed fatality number Monday night — a figure that is almost certain to spike following the blaze that last week destroyed Paradise, a town of 27,000 about 180 miles (290 kilometres) northeast of San Francisco.

Authorities were bringing in two mobile morgue units and requesting 150 search and rescue personnel. Officials were unsure of the exact number of missing.

“I want to recover as many remains as we possibly can, as soon as we can. Because I know the toll it takes on loved ones,” Honea said.

Chaplains accompanied some coroner search teams that visited dozens of addresses belonging to people reported missing. For those on the grim search, no cars in the driveway is good, one car a little more ominous and multiple burned-out vehicles equals a call for extra vigilance.

State officials said the cause of the inferno was under investigation.

READ MORE: VIDEO – Wildfire nearly quadruples in size

Meanwhile, a landowner near where the blaze began, Betsy Ann Cowley, said she got an email from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. the day before the fire last week telling her that crews needed to come onto her property because the utility’s power lines were causing sparks. PG&E had no comment on the email.

Stan Craig’s sister, Beverly Craig Powers, has not returned numerous texts and calls, and the adult children of her partner, Robert Duvall, have not heard from their father, he said. The couple was last seen evacuating their Paradise home on Thursday with two pickup trucks and a travel trailer, so they could be camping.

He knows friends and family are still being reunited with missing loved ones, but he said his unease grows every day. Still, the Fresno, California, resident wasn’t planning on heading to the fire area. As a former firefighter himself, he said he understands the chaos wildfires cause.

“I’m going to stay here until I have something more to go on,” he said.

The blaze was part of an outbreak of wildfires on both ends of the state. Together, they were blamed for 44 deaths, including two in celebrity-studded Malibu in Southern California , where firefighters appeared to be gaining ground against a roughly 143-square-mile (370-square-kilometre) blaze that destroyed at least 370 structures, with hundreds more feared lost.

All told, more than 8,000 firefighters statewide were battling wildfires that destroyed more than 7,000 structures and scorched more than 325 square miles (840 square kilometres), the flames feeding on dry brush and driven by blowtorch winds.

There were tiny signs of some sense of order returning to Paradise and anonymous gestures meant to rally the spirits of firefighters who have worked in a burned-over wasteland for days.

Large American flags stuck into the ground lined both sides of the road at the town limits, and temporary stop signs appeared overnight at major intersections. Downed power lines that had blocked roads were cut away, and crews took down burned trees with chain saws.

The 42 dead in Northern California surpassed the deadliest single fire on record, a 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. A series of wildfires in Northern California’s wine country last fall killed 44 people and destroyed more than 5,000 homes.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. </s> CHICO, Butte County — Search and recovery crews found the remains of eight more people, bringing the total number of victims killed in the Camp Fire to 56, fire officials said at a Wednesday night news conference.

All eight were found in Paradise — six inside structures and two outside.

Butte County Sheriff-Coroner Kory Honea said 130 people remain “unaccounted for.” He said a partial list of the missing was released earlier in the day.

Honea said 47 of the remains have been tentatively identified but not positively confirmed.

“We have been able to locate or determine that over 200 people we thought were missing or unaccounted for are not — as of tonight we have 130 people on our unaccounted for list,” Honea said.

He said he expects the list of 130 will get shorter as more people are found. Some 461 people are working to search for victims. Officials have added cadaver dogs.

Officials said the Camp Fire has destroyed a total of 10,321 buildings — 8,650 of which are single family homes. They also said they have towed 128 vehicles that were abandoned during the fire — and many were total losses as they were badly burned.

The fire grew by 3,000 acres since Wednesday morning to 138,000 acres and remained 35 percent contained.

The catastrophic Camp Fire’s growth had slowed overnight and cooler temperatures and less wind on Wednesday were helping firefighters.

The inferno is the deadliest and most destructive in state history.

More than 13,000 people evacuated from the fire are living in shelters. An outbreak of norovirus has sickened people at one shelter in Chico, according to Butte County public health officials. They could not say how many people were ill, but reported that they had been moved to an isolated area of the shelter to prevent spread of the virus. </s> The setting sun obscured by smoke from t the Carr Fire in Redding, Calif., July 31, 2018. The fire has killed at least six people and displaced tens of thousands thus far. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

Signs of encouragement for first responders is hung on a city in Redding, Calif., July 31, 2018. A wildfire, named the Carr fire, has killed at least six people and displaced tens of thousands thus far around Redding. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times) less

Signs of encouragement for first responders is hung on a city in Redding, Calif., July 31, 2018. A wildfire, named the Carr fire, has killed at least six people and displaced tens of thousands thus far around ... more

Firefighters try to control a back burn as the Carr fire continues to spread towards the towns of Douglas City and Lewiston near Redding, California on July 31, 2018. Two firefighters were killed fighting the blaze and three people, a 70 year old woman and her two great-grandchildren age four and five, perished when their Redding home was rapidly swallowed up by flames. / AFP PHOTO / Mark RALSTONMARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images less

Firefighters try to control a back burn as the Carr fire continues to spread towards the towns of Douglas City and Lewiston near Redding, California on July 31, 2018. Two firefighters were killed fighting the ... more

Firefighters gather as the procession for Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke passes in Redding, Calif., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. Stoke, who died last week in the Carr Fire, was being taken from the coroner's office to a funeral home. Fire officials say a massive blaze in Northern California that has killed six people and torched more than 1,000 homes grew overnight, fueled by wind. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Thursday firefighters made some gains and the blaze is now a third contained. (AP Photo/Michael Burke) less

Firefighters gather as the procession for Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke passes in Redding, Calif., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. Stoke, who died last week in the Carr Fire, was being taken from the coroner's ... more

People visit a memorial for Jeremy Stoke of the Redding Fire Department near where he was killed in the Carr Fire, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Redding, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher)

This Thursday, June 26, 2018, photo released by Casey Lansdon shows Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke in Redding, Calif. A wildfire roared with little warning into the Northern California city as thousands of people scrambled to escape before the walls of flames descended from forested hills onto their neighborhoods, officials said Friday. Stoke was killed in the blaze. (Casey Lansdon via AP) less

This Thursday, June 26, 2018, photo released by Casey Lansdon shows Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke in Redding, Calif. A wildfire roared with little warning into the Northern California city as thousands of ... more

From left, Shasta County Health and Human Services workers Mike Rinehart, Jon Taylor, Melanie Gilchrist and Theresa Ellis stand and watch as the procession for Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke passes in Redding, Calif., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. Stoke, who died last week in the Carr Fire, was being taken from the coroner's office to a funeral home. Fire officials say a massive blaze in Northern California that has killed six people and torched more than 1,000 homes grew overnight, fueled by wind. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Thursday firefighters made some gains and the blaze is now a third contained. (AP Photo/Michael Burke) less

From left, Shasta County Health and Human Services workers Mike Rinehart, Jon Taylor, Melanie Gilchrist and Theresa Ellis stand and watch as the procession for Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke passes in ... more

Shasta County Health and Human Services workers and others stand and watch as the procession for Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke passes in Redding, Calif., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. Stoke, who died last week in the Carr Fire, was being taken from the coroner's office to a funeral home. Fire officials say a massive blaze in Northern California that has killed six people and torched more than 1,000 homes grew overnight, fueled by wind. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Thursday firefighters made some gains and the blaze is now a third contained. (AP Photo/Michael Burke) less

Shasta County Health and Human Services workers and others stand and watch as the procession for Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke passes in Redding, Calif., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. Stoke, who died last week ... more

Gary Parmely, father of Jeremy Stoke of the Redding Fire Department, visits a memorial for his son who was killed in the Carr Fire.

Death came in an instant. And as never seen before in California history.

The Redding firefighter who died on July 26 as the fast-growing Carr Fire hit its apex was in fact killed by a fire tornado, the most intense tornado ever in the state, according to a report The Chronicle obtained Wednesday.

The monster tornado with a base the size of three football fields and winds up to 165 miles an hour swept down upon Jeremiah “Jeremy” Stoke in mere seconds, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection report.

At 7:39 p.m. the longtime Redding Fire Department veteran was driving his Ford F-150 truck down Buenaventura Road in northwest Redding, working on evacuating residents. One minute later he radioed out a “mayday” call saying he was getting burned over, and then his transmissions abruptly stopped, according to Cal Fire’s Green Sheet, the agency’s report on serious injuries and accidents.

Fire dispatchers desperately tried to find him by “pinging” his cell phone. One Cal Fire supervisor, leading evacuees as he went, drove north on Buenaventura toward where Stoke, a 37-year-old fire inspector, had been headed. There was no sign of him.

The blazes all around continued so savagely that his body wasn’t located until early the next morning by Redding fire crews. He was among six firefighters killed this year as they fought or responded to California’s historic wildfires. That’s made this the most lethal season for fire crews since 2008.

Meanwhile, the tornado was so ferocious it pulsed with 2,700 degrees of heat. It ripped roofs off houses and flung cars, power line towers and a steel shipping container into the air — all within a half-mile of the spot where Stoke was believed to have been trapped, according to the report. The phenomenon, exploding in the middle of what was already a gigantic, devastating wildfire, was so unusual even Cal Fire investigators are still struggling to understand it.

“Observations from witnesses and other evidence suggest that either several fire tornadoes occurred at different locations and times, or one fire tornado formed and then periodically weakened and strengthened causing several separate damage areas,” the report said.

Regardless of those specifics, the sight alone of the tornado that overwhelmed Stoke was awful. Several videos included in the Green Sheet show a terrifying, huge funnel dwarfing houses and fields as it shoves its swirling, flame-filled clouds high into the air. One video shows a tornado skipping along the water’s surface at Keswick Dam.

Stoke was well familiar with the dangers of out-of-control wildfires. But this tornado, the report and experts say, was unlike anything experienced before in California — quick, hot, huge and unpredictable.

UC Berkeley forensics Professor George Sensabaugh told The Chronicle that given the ruthlessness of the tornado, there was probably little Stoke could have done to save himself.

“I haven’t heard of anything quite like that,” he said, adding that some aspects of the tornado remind him of the historic bombing in World War II that destroyed the German city of Dresden. “I can’t imagine that he would have had a chance with no real advance warning.”

The report says that a Cal Fire captain noticed the twister near Buenaventura, looking north from Land Park, at 7:38 p.m. One minute later was when Stoke was driving along that road, and at 7:40 p.m. was when his “mayday” call went out.

“It’s pretty chilling when you look at the narrative,” said Jonathan Cox, a Cal Fire battalion chief who has read the report. “How quickly this tornado went from being dangerous to being just extreme and overwhelming was astounding. It’s something we’ve never seen before.”

At the time Stoke died, the Carr Fire had already burned 29,000 acres, dozens of homes and sent thousands of people fleeing for their lives. As of Wednesday evening, the blaze had destroyed 1,077 homes and charred 214,527 acres. It was 69 percent contained.

The Green Sheet also details the death that same evening of 81-year-old contract bulldozer operator Don Ray Smith of Pollock Pines (El Dorado County), and the harrowing escapes of fire crews and other dozer operators in the area where Stoke died.

Smith was helping cut a fire line near Spring Creek Reservoir at around 5:45 p.m. when flames surrounded him, according to the report. He radioed back that he couldn’t make it back to where he’d departed “because he was cut off by the fire, and he would push down instead,” the report said, and between 5:46 and 5:50 p.m. he requested water drops from firefighting aircraft and said he was “attempting to make a safety zone.”

Four Cal Fire helicopters began dumping water at 5:50 p.m. through heavy smoke into the location where they thought Smith was. The blaze was too intense to send in ground crews right away, the report said, and at 6:10 p.m. crew leaders told their division supervisor that Smith had been burned over.

The flames backed off enough by 7 p.m. for a crew to head down the fire line and confirm that Smith was dead.

The report does not assess blame, but it does offer cautions for the future — such as fleeing fire tornadoes upon sight.

Cox said the advice is wise, and the grief over the death of colleagues is nearly unfathomable. The probability of the future is that things will remain grim.

“It’s the trend we have now — larger, more damaging fires, and more and more of them,” he said. “The conditions are unrelenting.” </s> A remote processing plant operated by Seattle-based Peter Pan Seafoods near Alaska's Aleutian Islands has been heavily damaged by fire.

Peter Pan spokesman Dale Schiffler confirms a fire at the Port Moller plant, but declines to provide further details.

But Bob Murphy, a state Fish and Game fisheries biologist assigned to the area for the summer fishing season, says the fire broke out Tuesday night and continues to burn as of Wednesday afternoon. He says no one was injured.

Murphy says the plant offices, the processing section and the facility's large freezer were destroyed. Still standing are housing quarters for about 150 workers, the egg processing house and part of the dock.

Murphy says a cause is not immediately known.

Port Moller is an unincorporated area on the Alaska Peninsula.

Copyright 2017 KING </s> Butte County's Camp Fire — already the state's most deadly and destructive in modern history — had killed 56 people as of Wednesday, Sheriff Kory Honea said at a press conference.

That's up from 48 deaths on Tuesday. Honea said the eight additional bodies found Wednesday all were in Paradise. Only three victims have been identified so far: Concow resident 48-year-old Jesus Fernandez, Magalia resident 77-year-old Carl Wiley and 65-year-old Ernest Foss, of Paradise.

Meanwhile, Honea said there still are 130 people unaccounted for in the fire, a decrease from 228 people earlier this week.

Honea said advanced DNA technology was en route to Butte County to help identify the dead, and his office has already tentatively done that for 47 of the victims. He told area residents on Tuesday that, because it's "very, very difficult" to identify fire victims, the general population might end up finding bodies themselves when they're let back home.

The news also came as Honea acknowledged it was possible some bodies would never be identified because of how severely the fire burned.

The destruction from the fire has also gotten worse.

The number of structures destroyed went up Wednesday to 10,321 — of which 8,650 are single-family homes. The fire's size also grew to 138,000 acres Wednesday, fire officials said at a press conference.

The blaze that broke out in the Paradise area on the morning of November 8 was still 35 percent containment. It has forced the evacuation of 52,000, of whom 1,385 are still in shelters.

The unprecedented fire damaged far fewer structures than it's destroyed. The current damage toll is at only 217 total structures.

Meanwhile, county officials confirmed Wednesday that there was an outbreak of norovirus at the Neighborhood Church shelter in Chico. They said they didn't know how many people were affected. Those who are sick are separated from everyone else and being treated by public health nurses, they said.

These are the people who were still considered missing as of Tuesday evening (If you are on this list, the sheriff's office asks you to call 530-538-6570, 530-538-7544 or 530-538-7671 to let them know you're safe):

More: JUST POSTED: FEMA opens in Oroville as Camp Fire grows Wednesday </s> Image copyright AFP Image caption A victim of the fire is brought to a hospital in San Jose Pinula

Nineteen teenage girls have died in a blaze at a children's care home in Guatemala, officials say.

About 25 other people were injured in the fire at the Virgen de Asuncion shelter in San Jose Pinula, about 25km (15 miles) south-east of the capital, Guatemala City.

Police said the blaze may have been started by some of the residents.

On Tuesday, police officers intervened after a riot broke out at the home. About 60 children escaped.

Some alleged they had been mistreated or sexually abused.

'Over-capacity'

Oscar Franco, a spokesman for the volunteer firefighters, told local media: "At least 25 people were injured and transferred to hospitals and we have confirmed 19 bodies."

All those who died were aged between 14 and 17.

The fire ripped through the facility in minutes.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Anxious relatives gathered outside the shelter

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Following the fire, police secured the site, which had previously seen a riot

Nery Ramos, the head of Guatemala's national police, said the fire was started by a group of young people at the shelter.

Firefighters battled to contain the flames as desperate family members arrived at the scene to try to find their loved ones.

After the blaze, images showed burned bodies covered by blankets lying in one of the blackened rooms.

The children who fled on the eve of the fire said it was due to poor conditions and mistreatment following the riot, which left the facility damaged.

The UN children's fund in Guatemala said on Twitter it "condemns the tragedy", adding: "These children and adolescents must be protected".

Local reports say the capacity of the home is 400, but that many more children were living there at the time.

The shelter takes in children up to the age of 18 who have suffered abuse or trafficking, or have been abandoned.

But local media say the shelter was also functioning as a juvenile detention centre, to which judges were sending adolescents involved in criminal cases.

A deadly fire at a children's home in Mexico in 2009 left 49 dead. </s> Click here if you are having trouble viewing the slideshow on a mobile device.

CHICO — As people driven homeless by the Camp Fire were facing the specter of having to move out of a refugee encampment this weekend, authorities announced Friday evening that the number of people who perished in the state’s deadliest fire has now reached 71 and those still unaccounted for have surpassed 1,000.

That’s more than double the number from the second-deadliest wildfire in California history — the 1933 Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles — and could soon be triple the 25 people who died in the Oakland Hills firestorm in 1991.

Of the eight additional victims revealed Friday, seven were found in Paradise inside structures and one in Magalia, also inside a structure. Authorities also have released the names of two more fire victims — bringing the total number of officially identified victims to five — Paula Dodge, 70, and Randall Dodge, 68, both Paradise residents.

Although not reported by authorities, a Sacramento man told this news organization that he was notified Friday that the likely remains of his mother, Dorothy Lee Herrera, 90, and her husband of more than three decades, Louis Herrera, 86, were found in their home on Clear View Drive in Paradise.

Arthur Lee said he last heard from his mother the morning of the fire, leaving a voice message saying there was a fire and she needed to evacuate. His family searched every shelter and hospital for days.

“I was wondering if someone else would have picked them up,” Lee said from his Sacramento home Friday evening. “I was kind of hoping, but I’m assuming the fire moved so fast, they didn’t get a chance to get out.”

He submitted a DNA sample in Sacramento on Friday afternoon to help confirm the identification.

The official number of unaccounted for people announced Friday was 1,011, an increase of 380 from Thursday, even after officials cleared 329 people from their missing-persons rolls. Sheriff Kory Honea said the list continues to be culled from calls, emails and other data mined from callers in the initial hours of the fire and may contain duplicate entries.

“It’s easy for them to lose contact with each other,” Honea said, referring to people scattered across the state reporting their friends and relatives missing. “That adds to the difficulty.”

Complete California wildfire coverage with latest updates and stories from the scene – Read the stories

Along the fire lines, the historically destructive blaze has burned 146,000 acres and destroyed 9,700 homes and 2,563 other structures, according to Cal Fire. On a hopeful note, half of the fire is now contained.

Meanwhile, this news organization’s review of firefighter radio transmissions indicates a possible “second start” of the Camp Fire — currently being investigated by Cal Fire — was caught on a firewatch camera near the Concow reservoir, about a half-hour after the first flames were reported about five miles northeast near Poe Dam and Pulga.

To date, 47,200 people remain evacuated, and 1,164 were staying in evacuation and emergency shelters, authorities said.

Meanwhile, a tent city that served as a refuge for some of the most impoverished people left homeless by the Camp Fire likely will disappear by the end of the weekend, its occupants pushed to move to evacuation shelters and other living spaces for their longer-term health and safety as colder weather sets in and rain looms.

“It’s best for these people to get into a shelter for the best care,” said Rob Busick, one of the volunteer organizers of the encampment that sprang up in and beside the parking lot of Walmart on Forest Avenue. “This was always meant to be a short-term solution to a long-term problem.”

Busick noted next week’s forecast of colder weather and then rain had the Walmart encampment’s organizers worried that potential flooding could endanger people staying in more than 100 tents in a field abutting the asphalt lot.

“With the cold, rain and air quality, it’s not safe for them anymore,” he said. “We want to help them comfortably transition into the next place.”

News of the impending draw-down of the tent city, which hosted as many as 500 people at its peak since the Nov. 8 inferno and grew to include a distribution center for donated clothing and a food truck, as well as for public health and relocation assistance, was met with dismay by many people still staying there.

A sign erected at the encampment notifying people it was to be closed provoked “a near riot” Thursday night, said organizer Guido Barbero. Tensions also were heightened by confusion about who decided the camp should close.

Friday, next to the retail giant’s parking lot, some 125 tents were scattered across a field of beaten-down autumn-gold grass. In a circle of six tents that its denizens dubbed “Wally Hood” in tribute to the property owner, about 10 refugees from the fire-ravaged hills created a supportive new community and they did not want to leave, said Tammy Mezera, 49, formerly of Magalia.

Mezera was sitting with five friends in collapsible chairs inside the circle of tents, a large plastic bin for a table, and a metal night-time cage for Nel, the friendly brindle pit bull, serving as a kitchen counter.

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“Everybody’s been through a traumatic experience,” Mezera said. “We have a bond here, just like people in war, in the foxhole.”

News that she and her small band of evacuees and others in the camp will be uprooted “is creating more psychological hardship for people,” Mezera said. The camp’s dwellers were told that on Sunday the portable toilets would be removed and meals stopped.

“It’s too soon,” she said.

Deja German, staying with a friend in a large tent a stone’s throw from Wally Hood, criticized the effort to relocate evacuees. She said she didn’t know where they were supposed to go.

“Trying to find answers is pretty much impossible,” said German, 38, who got a ride out of Magalia the day the fire started.

A number of people staying in vehicles at the edge of the Walmart lot also were urged to leave, said Debi Crane, a retired florist evacuated with her two sisters, who turned a rented U-Haul truck into a parked living space.

Spending time at the camp with others traumatized by fire and loss was “uplifting,” said Crane, 62.

Many campers acknowledged the tent city was not entirely safe and reported seeing several fights and drug dealing, as well as homeless people not displaced by the fire who had started to move in for the free food and clothing.

Closure of the camp, organizer Busick said, was a collective decision by emergency officials, local government representatives and the handful of organizers — soccer friends in Chico — who started the camp. He lauded Walmart for its compassion and patience. “Walmart has been fantastic. They could have shut this down from day one,” he said.

How you can help victims of the Camp Fire in Butte County

Donated gas cards and other resources are being made available to help the campers get to official evacuation shelters and more stable living situations. Bidwell Jr. High School on North Avenue in Chico hosts a county shelter still accepting people, as others have filled.

Walmart spokeswoman Tiffany Wilson said although the company was happy it could provide a refuge, “we understand that our parking lots are not a viable long-term housing solution and are working closely with the American Red Cross, the county and local organizations to best preserve the health and safety of those impacted by the Camp Fire.”

For Tina Duarte, her daughter and two granddaughters, formerly of Paradise, the camp provided a refuge from disease outbreaks such as the orovirus that hit a Chico church shelter. Her youngest granddaughter is only three weeks old, she said.

“I lost my house. I’m not going to lose my granddaughter,” said Duarte, 45. “We’re better off in a tent.”

But on Friday afternoon, they accepted a good Samaritan’s offer to borrow a 40-foot trailer, and they were packing up to go.

Staff writers Jason Green and Julia Prodis Sulek contributed to this report.

Anyone seeking information about people missing in the wake of the Camp Fire or who wants to report someone missing or accounted for can view the latest list from the Butte County Sheriff’s Office at buttecounty.net/sheriffcoroner and call one of the following three hotlines: 530-538-6570, 530-538-7544, 530-538-7671.

Information about evacuation shelters for people displaced by the Camp Fire can be found at the Butte County website at buttecounty.net.
Fire destroys a kennel in Wasilla, Alaska, killing 46 Labrador Retrievers. Thirty-two other dogs survive the fire in the licensed shelter.