A TRAUMATISED survivor of the devastating California wildfires who videoed the charred remains of his mates after they burned to death has been slammed for being “insensitive”.
Greg Woodcox, 58, begged his five friends to leave their belongings and flee the “Camp Fire” – a ferocious wildfire that has so far claimed more than 40 lives in northern California.
Unfortunately, they had just seconds to escape the rapidly moving wall of flames that quickly swallowed their rural home in Paradise, Butte County, before overtaking their vehicles, reports SF Gate.
Woodcox, who abandoned his dogs and truck to flee the flames, said: “I’m in shock. Those poor souls, I tried to get them out, but we were trapped like rats.”
He has attributed his survival to a fox which darted across the road and showed him a path down a steep embankment into a stream, where he waited for the inferno to pass.
Woodcox explained: “I don’t know how I made it. I got in a three-foot-deep V-cut in the stream. This thing came over me and roared like a furnace from hell.”
After surviving the blaze, he walked back to his Jeep Cherokee, about 40 yards from his mates’ charred vehicles. The engine was still running, and – amazingly – his two Chihuahuas were still alive in the back seat.
Noticing the grisly remains of his friends, he took his mobile from his car and began recording the horrific scene: skeletal remains that are charred beyond recognition.
His nephew, Matthew Strausbaugh, later uploaded the footage on YouTube, which has offended and angered people in Paradise.
In the video, his uncle said: “Nobody made it. These people all got burned out. I was right down below them there. My friend, you can see he’s dead, and his mother.”
Woodcox, who told SF Gate that he is bipolar and searches for gold in the mountains, added: “We got trapped down here, we couldn’t get out.
“My friend that died, he was crippled, he’s dead. That’s just a horrific way to die.”
Through tears, he continued: “Oh my God, I’m so lucky to be alive.
“I went down the canyon to a creek, it came over me and I thought I was going to die.”
Earlier in the clip, which we have decided not to show, Woodcox has filmed the burned-out cars covered in soot and ash.
Describing the heartbreaking scene, he added: “These people all got burned out. There’s dead bodies in here. You can see the bones in the front seats.
“These people got burnt out in their cars like I almost did.”
Explaining how he had gone down to help people escape and then fled to safety, leaving his dogs inside his vehicle, he said: “I cannot believe my Jeep and my dogs… I prayed. This is the Holy Spirit working for you. I mean, my dogs went through the fire.”
However the clip has caused outrage in Paradise.
Resident Tamara Houston, who rescued horses in the area, said: “That was so insensitive. You don’t need to show people’s remains in the middle of such a horrible tragedy.”
Strausbaugh told SF Gate that he had had second thoughts about posting the video on YouTube – particularly as a local reporter told him off about the gruesome content when he offered it to several local broadcasters.
However, he reasoned, “I figured the good and bad of releasing it. It shows some horrific things, but on the other hand, if one person sees that video and that saves one person, then their deaths are not in vain.”
There has been a mixed response on YouTube, with some viewers suggesting people cut Woodcox “some slack. He’s gunna (sic) be traumatised with this forever.”
One man posted that after being a firefighter for 14 years, “this is what the public needs to see. Too many think that evacuation notices and alerts are ‘over the top’ or ‘not mandatory’ and would rather stay.
“We have started asking for people who decide to stay to give us a copy of their dental records, or if they would be willing to make a dental impression to help us identify their body. They usually get the hint but some still refuse to leave.”
Search teams were set to sift through the charred wreckage of Paradise, California, on Tuesday in the search of human remains as authorities investigated the cause of state’s deadliest ever wildfire.
The “Camp Fire” blaze, still raging in northern California, has killed at least 42 people and left 228 others listed as missing.
Another two people died in the separate “Woolsey Fire,” which has destroyed 435 structures and displaced about 200,000 people in the mountains and foothills near Southern California’s Malibu coast, west of Los Angeles.
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Authorities are probing the cause of the fires.
A spokeswoman for the California Public Utilities Commission told the Chico Enterprise-Record on Monday the regulator has launched investigations that may include an inspection of the fire sites once the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) allows.
The Camp Fire – California’s most destructive on record – has consumed more than 7,100 homes and other buildings since igniting on Thursday in Butte County’s Sierra foothills, about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco.
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News Pictures California wildfires survivor slammed for posting viral video of the charred bodies of his own friends killed by Camp Fire
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