Not a single resident of Paradise can be seen anywhere in town after most of them fled the burning Northern California community that may be lost forever. Abandoned, charred vehicles cluttered the main thoroughfare, evidence of the panicked evacuation a day earlier.

Most of its buildings are in ruin. Entire neighborhoods are leveled. The business district is destroyed. In a single day, this Sierra Nevada foothill town of 27,000 founded in the 1800s was largely incinerated by flames that moved so fast there was nothing firefighters could do.

Only a day after it began, the blaze that started outside the hilly town of Paradise had grown on Friday to nearly 360 square kilometres and destroyed more than 6,700 structures, almost all of them homes, making it California’s most destructive wildfire since record-keeping began.

Nine people have been found dead, some inside their cars and others outside vehicles or homes after a desperate evacuation that Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea called “the worst-case scenario”. Their identities were not yet known.

“It is what we feared for a long time,” Honea said, noting there was no time to knock on residents’ doors one-by-one.

Cathy Fallon wipes her face as she and her son Gabriel stand near the charred remains of her home in Paradise on Friday. AP

With fires also burning in Southern California , state officials put the total number of people forced from their homes at more than 200,000. Evacuation orders included the entire city of Malibu, which is home to 13,000, among them some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

President Donald Trump issued an emergency declaration providing federal funds for Butte, Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

The fire in Paradise, about 290 km northeast of San Francisco, was still burning out of control Friday.

A thick, yellow haze hung in the air, giving the appearance of twilight in the middle of the day. Some of the “majestic oaks” the town boasts of on its website still have fires burning in their trunks. Thick wooden posts holding up guardrails continued to burn.

Thursday morning’s evacuation order set off a desperate exodus in which many frantic motorists got stuck in gridlocked traffic. Many abandoned their vehicles to flee on foot as the flames bore down on all sides.

“The fire was so close I could feel it in my car through rolled up windows,” said Rita Miller, who fled Paradise with her disabled mother.

The town, situated on a ridge between two valleys, was a popular retirement community, raising concerns of elderly and immobile residents who have been reported missing.

A firefighter battles the Woolsey Fire burning a home in Malibu, California, on Friday. AP

On the outskirts of town, Patrick Knuthson, a fourth-generation resident, said only two of the 22 homes that once stood on his street are still there — his and a neighbour’s. “The fire burned from one house, to the next house, to the next house until they were pretty much all gone,” Knuthson said.

On Friday, Knuthson was covered from head to toe in black soot. His tiny town will never be the same, he said.

Paradise town council member Melissa Schuster lost her 16-acre Chapelle de L’Artiste retreat, a posh property with a chapel, pond and pool. But on Friday, she was clinging to two furry glimmers of hope: Shyann and Twinkle Star Heart.

“Our llamas,” she said. “Somehow they made it through.”

Schuster said they stopped trying to hook up a trailer for the animals and fled their home and property with just their three cats on Thursday when the day turned pitch black as fire roared in.

“It’s Paradise,” she said. “It’s always been Paradise, and we will bring it back.”