Frustration, chaos as wildfire recovery drags on

CHICO >> It’s been 12 days since Christina Taft started the frantic search for her mother Victoria, who refused to evacuate their Paradise home as flames neared, and it’s been six days since she gave authorities a cheek swab to identify remains that are likely her mother’s.

She still hasn’t received confirmation that her mother is dead, and says she’s been frustrated by what she feels is a lack of communication from Butte County officials.

“They said they found remains, they didn’t say her remains. They won’t confirm it to me the whole time,” Taft said Monday.

With 77 people killed in California’s deadliest wildfire in at least a century, there are still an astonishing 1,000 names on the list of missing. While it’s down from nearly 1,300 the day before, it is inexact and incomplete, progress has been slow, and the many days of uncertainty are adding to the stress.

More than a dozen people are marked as “unknowns,” without first or last names. In some cases, names are listed twice or more times under different spellings. Others are confirmed dead, and their names simply haven’t been taken off the list yet.

Survivors and relatives of those caught in the fire in Northern California are using social media to get the word out: in some cases, to post that their loved ones were safe; in others, to plead for help.

“Aunt Dorothy is still missing. There has been confusion going on at the Sheriffs office regarding her whereabouts because she was taken off the list,” a man wrote on Facebook on Monday.

“I have an uncle and two cousins that I have not been able to make contact with,” one woman wrote on Facebook, with their names. “Any info would be appreciated.”

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea has said he released the rough and incomplete list in hopes that people would contact authorities to say they are OK. He has called it “raw data” compiled from phone calls, emails and other reports.

“We put the list out. It will fluctuate. It will go up. It will go down because this is in a state of flux,” Honea said Monday. “My view on this has been that I would prefer to get the information out and start working to find who is unaccounted for and who is not. I would put progress over perfection.”

Officials have also culled reports from the earliest hours of the disaster, when fire knocked out mobile phone communications and thousands fled, some to safe shelter that was hundreds of miles away.

Honea said his office was working with the Red Cross to account for people entering and leaving shelters. Evacuees are also helping authorities narrow the list, sometimes by chance.

Robert James Miles, who lost his Paradise trailer in the blaze, was staying at a shelter in Chico where people posted names of those they hadn’t heard from. Miles said he alerted a Red Cross worker Saturday that he recognized eight names on the board as friends he knew were OK.

“Two of them were in the shelter,” he said with a chuckle.

Ellen Lewis, whose home in Paradise was destroyed, went to a Federal Emergency Management Agency center for help, where a FEMA representative showed her the list of the missing. She recognized the names of two people from her archery club.

“I’m going to have to contact other people to see if they’re OK,” she said. She said she would call the sheriff’s office if she found they were safe.

Meanwhile, those searching for bodies were in a race against the weather, as rain was forecast for Wednesday. The precipitation could help knock out the flames, but it could also hinder the search by washing away fragmentary remains and turning ash into a thick paste.

The fire, which burned at least 234 square miles and

Survivors and relatives of those caught in the fire in Northern California are using social media to get the word out: in some cases, to post that their loved ones were safe; in others, to plead for help.

destroyed nearly 12,000 homes, reported was twothirds contained on Monday.

Alcatraz Island, San Francisco’s cable cars, the Oakland Zoo and other San Francisco Bay Area area attractions were closed Monday because of smoke from the blaze some 180 miles away. Several San Francisco museums over the weekend offered free admission to give people something to do indoors.

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said it is “way too early” to estimate the damage done by the wildfire. But for perspective, he said the fires that gutted 6,800 homes last year resulted in $12.6 billion in insured losses.

JOHN LOCHER — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Troy Miller wipes his eyes as he walks beside a burned out car on his property in Concow Miller said he tried to evacuate when the Camp Fire came roaring through the area, but had to turn back when the roads were blocked with debris and fire. A small group of residents who survived the deadly wildfire are defying evacuation orders and living in the burn zone.

ERIC RISBERG — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A ferryboat and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge are obscured due to smoke and haze from wildfires Monday in San Francisco.

DIGITALGLOBE, A MAXAR COMPANY VIA AP This combination photo of satellite images provided by DigitalGlobe shows a neighborhood in the northern California town of Paradise before a wildfire on left, and after the fire. Desperate families posted photos and messages on social media and at shelters in hopes of finding missing loved ones, many of them elderly, nearly two weeks after the wildfire known as the Camp Fire.

ERIC RISBERG — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Smoke and haze from wildfires hovers over Russian Hill Monday in San Francisco.