‘Devil winds’ fan flames as death toll in California rises to 25
Fears for more than 100 missing people as ferocious fires continue to spread
THE grim task of recovering and identifying the victims of California’s apocalyptic wildfires began yesterday as officials raised the death toll to 25, with more than 100 people unaccounted for.
With severe, hot and dry “devil winds” expected to continue throughout today, firefighters have been unable to contain the inferno in Butte County, in the north of the state, where 52,000 people have fled their homes.
Most of the fatalities and missing people come from the town of Paradise, which was reduced to ash at the weekend. So far, 23 are known to have perished there, with that figure expected to rise. Two people died in Malibu.
The so-called Camp fire has destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, most of them family homes, over an area of 164sq miles.
Officials made arrangements to bring in a mobile DNA laboratory so that people with missing relatives could provide samples to help identify recovered remains. Anthropologists were working alongside coroners to help examine body parts sifted from scorched rubble.
At the ruined Holly Hills Mobile Estate, yellow police tape marked spots tagged “Doe C” and “Doe D”, suggesting that bodies were found there. Kory Honea, the Butte County sheriff, said in many cases the only remains they were able to find were bones or bone fragments.
“This weighs heavy on all of us,” he said. “Myself and especially those staff members who are out there doing what is important work but certainly difficult work.”
Paradise resident Jan Macgregor, 81, returned home to discover nothing left but a large metal safe and some pipework.
“We knew Paradise was a prime target for forest fire over the years,” he said. “We’ve had ‘em come right up to the city limits – oh yeah – but nothing like this.”
Five hundred miles south, Malibu, the celebrity enclave, remained subject to mandatory evacuation as a separate blaze, named the Woolsey fire, threatened to spread. About 83,000 acres had been affected with at least 177 buildings destroyed.
Wildfires have intensified in recent years because of a five-year drought and warmer weather attributed to climate change.
Donald Trump, the US president, has blamed the fires on human mismanagement of forests and angered Californians by threatening to stop federal aid.
“With proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart,” he said yesterday.
Brian Rice, president of the California firefighters’ union, excoriated Mr Trump. He said the president’s statement was, “ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines”.