***Live Updates*** Wildfires Blaze Across Parts of California

A wildfire blazing so quickly that firefighters couldn’t hope to stop it quadrupled in size Friday after destroying several thousand buildings and leveling much of a Northern California town of nearly 30,000 people, according to state authorities. Law enforcement officials confirm at least 25 people were found dead in vehicles torched by wildfire flames. A wind-driven wildfire raged through Southern California communities on Friday, burning homes and forcing thousands of people to flee as it relentlessly pushed toward Malibu and the Pacific Ocean.

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for live updates. All times eastern.

11:31 PM: The North California wildfire is now 5 percent contained.

9:33 PM: The mayor of Thousand Oaks says that three-quarters of his city is under fire evacuation orders and that most likely includes people affected by the deadly bar shooting this week, according to the Associated Press.

Mayor Andy Fox spoke Friday about the back-to-back crises his city faced when a wildfire threatened the city the day after a gunman killed 12 people at a country music bar.

Fox says the distinction between the two events is that the victims of the Borderline Bar and Grill and their family members experienced a permanent loss they may never recover from.

So far, he says, no one has died from the fire that has burned into the city.

Fox says that the fire is serious situation, but that homes can be rebuilt.

9:19 PM: The Camp Fire is now the most destructive fire in California’s history.

9:16 PM: The death toll has climbed to nine.

9:15 PM: Butte County official says two calls regarding possible looting were received. No arrested were made.

9:13 PM: Fire official says 6,713 structures destroyed in Northern California wildfire that has grown to 140 square miles, per the Associated Press.

9:12 PM: A weather update on the Chino area.

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8:08 PM: A sixth person has died in the Camp Fire in Butte County, officials say. More details to come.

8:01 PM: People have scoured evacuation centers, called authorities and posted desperate online pleas for help finding relatives they haven’t heard from since a fast-moving wildfire devastated a Northern California town, according to the Associated Press.

Over a day after tens of thousands evacuated the town of Paradise and the nearby community of Magalia, dozens of people, many of them elderly, remained unaccounted for. Anguished relatives flooded social media asking for help locating their loved ones. Hours later, some were relieved to be reunited with family hours later. Diane Forsman, who lives in New Hampshire, said her 83-year-old mother can’t walk on her own and relies on oxygen. Her caretaker wasn’t able to reach her Thursday morning when the fire swept through Magalia.“It’s terrifying,” Forsman said by telephone. “We’re trying to remain hopeful until we get word. We don’t know what the outcome will be.”

She and her brother posted on social media to see if anyone had seen Jean Forsman. They tried calling 911 and other numbers. They were told officials had a list of 300 to 400 welfare checks to do. Finally, they got word through Facebook on Friday morning that someone in her neighborhood had picked up a woman with disabilities. But the Forsmans haven’t been able to confirm yet whether it’s their mom. Many of the missing are seniors without cellphones or social media accounts who had moved to the Northern California area that’s known as a refuge for retirees. About one-fourth of Paradise’s 27,000 residents are 65 years or older.

When it was time to evacuate, Suzanne Drews couldn’t get to her 84-year-old mother, who lives east of her in Paradise. Helen Pace lived by herself in a mobile home park with other seniors and didn’t have a cellphone. Drews registered on several websites set up for missing persons and went to evacuation sites searching for Pace. “I’m trying not to worry. We’ll keep looking and praying,” Drews said by phone Friday afternoon. “I’m praying that she’s at peace, that she’s comfortable enough and not panicking.” Cherri Rolla’s family hasn’t heard from her 83-year-old aunt, Sylvia Johnson, who lives in Paradise with at least six dogs and three horses. Rolla said a grandson living nearby tried to get Johnson to leave Thursday but she refused.

“When he went back, they wouldn’t let him in,” said Rolla, who lives of North Dakota. “The hardest part is to be so far away and not figure out what we’re going to try to do to find her.”

On Friday, they got a call that a woman at a church in Oroville may be Johnson. “We don’t have 100 percent confirmation that it’s her,” Rolla said. “I’m trying not to get too terribly excited.” Families were aided on Twitter by the actor James Woods who posted and retweeted messages from those looking for missing people. The hashtag he started became a central hub for people trying to reunite with their loved ones. Steve Christensen drove up more than 130 miles (210 kilometers) from Sutter Creek to Chico and spent Friday trying to find his wife’s sister, Debbie McCrea, and her boyfriend.

McCrea lives on a quarter-acre lot in Paradise and has had to evacuate from wildfires several times. Usually she calls her sister and others to let them know she’s getting out. Not this time. “She’s evacuated before, so she should know the routine. So that’s why I’m concerned that she hasn’t called us,” said Christensen. “We haven’t heard from her at all since the fire began, and that’s not like her.”

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7:42 PM: Pacific Gas & Electric Co. says it experienced a problem on an electrical transmission line near the site of a massive fire in Northern California minutes before the blaze broke out, according to the Associated Press.

The company said in a one-paragraph summary filed Thursday with state utility regulators that it had experienced an outage on the line about 15 minutes before the fire started. The company said it later observed damage to a transmission tower on the line near the town of Paradise.

The fire has killed at least five people and destroyed hundreds of homes. Paradise is 180 miles (289 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.

The filing was first reported by KQED News.

Fire officials have not determined a cause for the blaze.

7:36 PM:

7:26 PM: The view in San Jose and San Francisco.

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7:10 PM: Scenes from Malibu.

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6:19 PM: Air quality update for northern California.

6:17 PM: Dramatic audio of firefighters responding to a downed transmission power line in Paradise.

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6:07 PM: Law enforcement hand off a potbelly pig they found to Butte County Animal Control.

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5:57 PM: Kim Kardashian West, Scott Baio, Rainn Wilson and Guillermo del Toro are among numerous celebrities forced to evacuate their homes, in some cases hurriedly trying to arrange transport for their horses, the Associated Press reports. Some, like del Toro and Caitlyn Jenner, did not know the fate of their homes, but the wind-driven wildfire has destroyed the home of “Dr. Strange” director Scott Derrickson and the historic Paramount Ranch where shows like HBO’s “Westworld” and “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” were filmed.

Alyssa Milano said her home is “in jeopardy” in hopes evacuating her 5 horses. The actress ultimately got the help she needed and tweeted that her “Horses are finally safe. My children are safe. My home is in jeopardy but… everything with a heartbeat is safe. Thank you all for your concern.”

The celebrity website TMZ reported that Jenner’s home was burned, but her publicist said that was not yet confirmed. The Olympic gold medalist safely evacuated.

Kardashian West posted video on Instagram of an area on fire with a message “Pray for Calabasas.” She said she landed back home, spent one hour packing and evacuated shortly afterward.

Derrickson said he is safe despite losing his home.

The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area said the Paramount Ranch known as the “Western Town” served as a location for productions ranging from 1938′s “The Adventures of Marco Polo” to TV shows “The Mentalist” and “Weeds.” The location known as “Western Town” is set in the mountains west of Los Angeles dates to 1927 when Paramount Pictures leased the ranch and began making films there.

Western Town specifically was built for TV productions in the 1950s and was used for such westerns as “The Cisco Kid” and “Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theatre.”

Filming continued for decades even as the ranch changed hands. It was acquired by the National Park Service in 1980 but has continued to function as a filming location, serving as a location for the first two seasons of the sci-fi series “Westworld.” HBO said it did not know extent of the damage and expressed concern for “all those affected by these horrible fires.”

When not in use for filming, visitors could stroll through Western Town while hiking or ride through on horseback.

Actor James Wood asked nearly 2 million of his Twitter followers to use the hashtag #CampFireJamesWoods to help share names of those who are missing in a separate wildfire in Northern California that has claimed five lives.

He also tweeted resources for horse owners to have their animals evacuated from the Southern California blaze, and called Milano’s report that her family and horses had been evacuated “good news.” Woods was not among those displaced — he tweeted that he was on the East Coast.

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5:39 PM: Smokey skies in northern California continue.

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5:07 PM: Nurses and patients have recounted their dramatic escapes from a hospital in a Northern California town that was devastated by a ferocious wildfire in an interview with the Associated Press.

Nurse Darrel Wilken told the Chico Enterprise-Record newspaper on Friday that the fire in the town of Paradise came so quickly that he and other employees at the Feather River Hospital used their own cars to evacuate patients.

Wilken said he took three patients in his car and that two of them were in critical condition. He says he battled gridlocked traffic on a road surrounded on both sides by fire.

Paradise resident Cody Knowles said his wife, Francine, was having gallbladder surgery Thursday morning.

When the evacuation was announced, she was still asleep from anesthesia. He waited until she woke up and they escaped in a hospital employee’s car.

The hospital says it evacuated 60 patients to other facilities.

A surgical nurse who evacuated from a Northern California hospital with a wildfire roaring nearby says she had to return after her vehicle went up in flames and one of her pant legs caught fire.

Nichole Jolly said Friday that she helped evacuate patients Thursday from Adventist Health Feather River Hospital in the town of Paradise, where at least five people died.

When she tried to leave, she got stuck in the firestorm.

She said firefighters extinguished her smoldering pants, covered her in a fire blanket and brought her back to the hospital, where she waited out the fire.

She said doctors extinguished burning trees around the hospital to try to keep the flames at bay.

Jolly eventually escaped the town.

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4:53 PM: More eye-popping scenes from Paradise.

4:52 PM: Firefighters battle wildfire flames in Magalia.

4:43 PM: Rocklin police officer takes care of a horse discovered wandering after the Camp Fire raged through the area in Paradise.

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4:32 PM: Visibility issues persist in Chico as Camp Fire rages.

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4:20 PM: There were no signs of life Friday on the road toward the town of Paradise except for the occasional chirping of a bird, write the Associated Press. A thick, yellow haze from the wildfire hung in the air and gave the appearance of twilight in the middle of the day.

Strong winds had blown the blackened needles on some evergreens straight to one side. A burned out car with its doors open sat on the shoulder.

Five people have been found dead in Paradise from the fire, and sheriff’s officials say they are investigating additional reports of fatalities. Thousands of buildings were destroyed.

The town of 27,000 about 180 miles northeast of San Francisco was completely evacuated.

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3:54 PM: Malibu issued the following alert: “Fire is now burning out of control and heading into populated areas of Malibu. All residents must evacuate immediately.”

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3:49 PM: Feel good story about the Paradise Alliance Church still intact as the wildfire blazes.

3:42 PM: Smokey skies in Oakland.

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3:32 PM: Photo of the Woolsey Fire from Santa Monica.

(Photo by Joel B. Pollak/Breitbart News)

3:10 PM: Video shows the aftermath of the Camp Fire in Paradise

3:00 PM:

List of school closures below:

Willows Unified School District

Chico Unified School District

Chico State

Los Molinos Unified School District

Butte College

2:55 PM: Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area officials say the Western Town at Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills has burned down. Los Angeles photojournalist John Schreiber shared photos of what appears to be the aftermath.

The park service says the ranch served as locations for productions ranging from 1938′s “The Adventures of Marco Polo” to TV’s “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” and the more recent shows “The Mentalist” and “Weeds,” the Associated Press notes.

Western Town specifically was built for TV productions in the 1950s and was used for such westerns as “The Cisco Kid” and “Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theatre.”

The location set in the mountains west of Los Angeles dates to 1927 when Paramount Pictures leased the ranch and began making films there.

Filming continued for decades even as the ranch changed hands. It was acquired by the National Park Service in 1980 but has continued to function as a filming location.

When not in use for filming, visitors could stroll through Western Town while hiking or ride through on horseback.

2:35 PM: Sheriff’s officials in Northern California say the five people found dead in vehicles torched by a wildfire’s flames could not immediately be identified because of the burns they suffered.

The Butte County Sheriff’s Office said Friday that autopsies will be conducted.

Officials say the victims were found in the same area in the town of Paradise, near a main thoroughfare heading out of the town that was consumed by flames.

All of the city’s 27,000 residents were ordered to evacuate on Thursday as the wildfire quickly turned into an inferno.

Many residents said traffic jams developed as they left as panicked people fled, some abandoning their cars to try to escape on foot.

The fire has grown to nearly 110 square miles.

Paradise is 180 miles northeast of San Francisco.

2:30 PM: Several rabbits were spotted against a wall at Hillcrest Drive and Black Oak Street in Thousand Oaks. Video of the terrified wildlife is going viral.

2:29 PM: The Woolsey fire grows moves towards the west valley area in Porter Ranch, California