Last Updated Jul 28, 2018 11:18 AM EDT REDDING, Calif. -- Only a handful of homes still stand in Keswick, a small northern California community consumed by wildfire
The air is thick with the smell of smoke and chemicals, and the smoldering remains are still too hot to sift through
The so-called Carr Fire, still mostly uncontained, so thoroughly devoured homes as it roared through Shasta County that it's hard to say how many were there just days before
Somewhere in the ash was the home of Shyla and Jason Campbell, a firefighter who was six hours away battling a wildfire burning near Yosemite Valley when the Carr Fire moved in on his home and family
"Firenado" seen in California wildfire is a scientific phenomenon Shyla Campbell, 32, said it was nearly 2 a
m. Thursday when she got an official alert to evacuate. "It's huge flames, it's coming up the hill, and everyone's out and we're watching it, then it goes down, and everyone's like, 'Oh it's going out,' " she said
"And I'm like, 'No, it's going down the mountain and it's going to come back up the next ridge
' " She was right. The family spent the night at a hotel. When Jason Campbell returned from the blaze he was fighting on Friday, he found his own home had gone up in flames, along with an RV and a boat
The Campbells' home of five years is among at least 500 structures that officials say were destroyed by the fire, which also swept through the historic Gold Rush town of Shasta and hit homes in Redding, a city of 92,000 about 100 miles south of the Oregon border
View Gallery A blackened landscape is shown from wildfire damage near Keswick, California, U
S., July 27, 2018. ALEXANDRIA SAGE/REUTERS "It's tough," Shyla Campbell said Friday from the city of Shasta Lake
"I just have to figure out where we're going to stay. We're just trying to stay away from the fire
" So are about 37,000 people who remain under evacuation orders Friday
Nearly 5,000 homes in the area were being threatened by the 75-square-mile blaze, which is just 5 percent contained
Elsewhere in California, large fires continued to burn outside Yosemite National Park and in the San Jacinto Mountains east of Los Angeles near Palm Springs
Nationally, 89 active large fires have consumed nearly 930,000 acres in 14 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center
So far this year, nearly 37,000 wildfires have burned more than 4
25 million acres. A broken-down vehicle started the Carr Fire on Monday, CBS News' Carter Evans reports from Redding
The blaze began as a small wildfire and erupted into a living hellscape
Thousands of people scrambled to escape before the walls of flames descended from forested hills onto their neighborhoods Thursday
Residents who gathered their belongings in haste described a chaotic and congested getaway as the embers blew up to a mile ahead of flames and the fire leaped across the wide Sacramento River and torched subdivisions in Redding
"It's like a war zone," one woman said. "It's just like a bomb just hit each house and just exploded
" Redding police chief Roger Moore was among those who lost their homes, the Los Angeles Times reported
Greg and Terri Hill evacuated their Redding home of 18 years Thursday night with little more than their medications, photo albums, clothes and firearms, assuming they'd be back in a few days
But when they returned Friday, virtually nothing was left of their home but fine particles of ash
The remains were smoldering so hot, they couldn't get too close to see if anything survived
"It's pretty emotional," Terri Hill said. "I know it's just stuff
A lot of memories. But we'll make new memories and get new stuff
Everybody's safe." The Hills fled before they were told to, knowing danger was afoot when the power went out and helicopters suddenly began flying low over their home
Liz Williams loaded up two kids in her car and then found herself locked in bumper-to-bumper traffic with neighbors trying to retreat from Lake Redding Estates
She eventually jumped the curb onto the sidewalk and "booked it
" "I've never experienced something so terrifying in my life," she said
"I didn't know if the fire was just going to jump out behind abush and grab me and suck me in
" The flames moved so fast that firefighters working in oven-like temperatures and bone-dry conditions had to drop efforts to battle the blaze at one point to help people escape
The fire, which created at least two flaming tornados that toppled trees, shook firefighting equipment and busted truck windows, took "down everything in its path," said Scott McLean, a spokesman for Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fighting wildfires
"They say it was like a 'fire tornado,'" said Chris Corona, one man who lives in the area
On Friday, he returned to sift through what was left. "This was my house since I was born," he said, getting emotional
The fire, now covering 48,000 acres, rages on. At least three people are missing as the flames spread -- two Redding children and their great-grandmother
Two firefighters were killed in the blaze, Redding fire inspector Jeremy Stoke and a bulldozer operator whose name wasn't immediately released
He was the second bulldozer operator killed in a California blaze in less than two weeks
Fire officials warned that the blaze would probably burn deeper into urban areas before there was any hope of containing it, though it either changed direction or was stopped before it could burn into the core of the city
For more infomation >> Carr Fire Rages In Northern California - Duration: 1:15. 
For more infomation >> 1 California Wildfire Doubles In Size, 14 Total Ravaging The State - Duration: 1:37. 
For more infomation >> Las llamas propagan muerte y destrucción en California | Noticiero | Telemundo - Duration: 2:21. 
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