Niners Host Football Team From Wildfire-Ravaged Paradise California

Players, cheerleaders and coaches were given a break when the 49ers invited the team to Monday night's game.

The 49ers hosted a high school football team from Paradise, California, which has been ravaged by wildfires, at Monday night's 27–23 loss to the Giants. 

Players, cheerleaders and coaches were given a break when the 49ers invited the team to Monday night's game by sending a bus to make the 200-mile journey to Levi's Stadium.  

Coach Rick Prinz told ESPN the bus ride might have been the biggest relief.

"I think the biggest reaction was on the bus ride here when they all slept," Prinz said. "They're exhausted. They're all displaced. [Almost] all of their homes have burned down. They've lost everything."

The team, which went 8–2, had to forfeit a playoff appearance because of the fires.

The Niners will donate all proceeds from Monday night's 50/50 drawing to help those impacted by the fires. Players, including Nick Mullens and George Kittle, are signing and donating their game-worn jerseys to be auctioned off.

Paradise, a town of 27,000, was largely incinerated on Thursday as the Camp Fire in Northern California tore through, killing at least 42 people. It is the deadliest fire in state history. Two people were also found dead in a wildfire in Southern California, where flames tore through Malibu mansions and working-class Los Angeles suburbs. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed and over 150 are unaccounted for because of the Camp Fire. 

More than 8,000 firefighters in all battled three large wildfires burning across nearly 400 square miles (1,040 square kilometers) in Northern and Southern California, with out-of-state crews arriving.

Flames also besieged Thousand Oaks, the Southern California city in mourning over the massacre of 12 people in a shooting rampage at a country music bar Wednesday night.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.