Hundreds still missing as California toll rises

Officials and relatives held out hope that many of those unaccounted for were safe

As relatives desperately searched shelters for missing loved ones, crews stepped up the search for bodies in the smoking ruins of Paradise, loading remains into a hearse.

Wildfires continued to rage on both ends of the state.

A Northern California sheriff reported six more fatalities, pushing the death toll to 31 statewide.

Butte County Sheriff Cory Honea said the human remains included five bodies found at homes and one in a vehicle in Paradise.

But he also said that 228 people are still unaccounted for — an increase from 100 earlier yesterday.

At least five search teams were working in Paradise — a town of 27,000 that was largely incinerated last week — and in surrounding communities.

Honea said the county had consulted anthropologists from California State University at Chico because, in some cases, investigators have been able to recover only bones and bone fragments.

The devastation was so complete in some neighbourhoods that “it’s very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there,” Honea said.

Authorities were also bringing in a mobile DNA lab and encouraged people with missing relatives to submit samples to aid in identifying the dead.

People looking for friends or relatives called evacuation centres, hospitals, police and the coroner’s office.

Sol Bechtold drove from shelter to shelter looking for his mother, Joanne Caddy, a 75-year-old widow whose house burned down with the rest of her neighbourhood in Magalia, just north of Paradise. She lived alone and did not drive.

Bechtold posted a flyer on social media, pinned it to bulletin boards at shelters and showed her picture around to evacuees, asking if anyone recognised her.

He came across a few of Caddy’s neighbours, but they hadn’t seen her. As he drove through the smoke and haze to yet another shelter, he said, “I’m also under a dark emotional cloud. Your mother’s somewhere and you don’t know where she’s at. You don’t know if she’s safe.”

He added: “I’ve got to stay positive. She’s a strong, smart woman.”

Officials and relatives held out hope that many of those unaccounted for were safe and simply had no cellphones or other ways to contact loved ones.

The sheriff’s office in the stricken northern county set up a missingpersons call centre to help connect people.

Governor Jerry Brown said California is requesting aid from the Trump Administration.

US President Donald Trump has blamed “poor” forest management for the fires. Brown told a press briefing that federal and state governments must do more forest management but said that’s not the source of the problem.

“Managing all the forests in everywhere we can does not stop climate change,” Brown said.

“And those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies that we’re now witnessing, and will continue to witness in the coming years.”

Firefighters battling the so-called Camp Fire with shovels and bulldozers, flame retardants and hoses expected wind gusts up to 65 km/h.

Officials said they expect the wind to die down, but there was still no rain in sight.

More than 8000 firefighters in all battled three large wildfires burning across nearly 1040 sq km in Northern and Southern California, with out-ofstate crews arriving.

Two people were found dead in a wildfire in Southern California, where flames tore through Malibu mansions and working-class Los Angeles suburbs alike.

The two severely burned bodies were discovered in a driveway in Malibu.

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 last week.

About 300,000 people statewide were under evacuation orders, most of them in Southern California.

Fire officials said that the larger of that region’s two fires, the one that hit Malibu, grew to 337 sq km and was 10 per cent contained.

But the strong, dry Santa Ana winds that blow from the interior towards the coast returned after a one-day lull, fanning the flames.

The count of lost structures in both Southern California fires climbed to nearly 180, authorities said.

The large mobile home community of Seminole Springs, in the rugged Santa Monica Mountains north of Malibu, appeared devastated.