Grim task of finding bodies continues
• Ernest Foss was a musician who gave lessons out of his home when he lived in San Francisco. Carl Wiley refurbished tires for Michelin. Jesus Fernandez was known as “Zeus.”
They were among the first victims identified in the aftermath of the deadliest, most destructive wildfire in California history, an inferno blamed for at least 48 deaths, with authorities ramping up the search Tuesday for still more victims.
The flames all but obliterated the Northern California town of Paradise, population 27,000, and ravaged surrounding areas last Thursday. Efforts were underway to bring in mobile morgues, cadaver dogs, a rapid DNA analysis system for identifying victims, and an additional 150 search-and-rescue personnel on top of 13 teams already looking for remains — a grim indication that the death toll would almost surely rise.
As of midday Tuesday, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea’s office had identified four of the dead.
James Wiley said sheriff ’s deputies informed him that his father, Carl, 77, was among the dead.
Foss, 63, moved to Paradise eight years ago because the high cost of living pushed him out of the San Francisco Bay Area, according to his daughter, Angela Loo. He had swollen limbs and couldn’t walk. He had also been on oxygen.
Fernandez, a 48-year-old Concow resident, died along with his beloved dog, King.
Five days after the blaze, over 1,000 people were at more than a half-dozen shelters set up for evacuees.
Eddie Lazarom, who fled Paradise on foot before getting a lift from a UPS truck, was among those staying at a church. He said he had yet to hear from his three grandchildren, ages 22, 24 and 28.
“I am really worried about them. They have common sense, I’m sure, but I’d hate to find out later that they burned up,” he said.
The Northern California tragedy surpassed the deadliest single fire on record, a 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles that killed 29.
At the other end of the state Tuesday, firefighters continued making progress against a 388-square-kilometre blaze that has killed two people in star-studded Malibu and destroyed well over 400 structures in Southern California.
The flames roared to life again in a mountainous wilderness area in the morning, sending up a huge plume of smoke near the community of Lake Sherwood and prompting authorities to send aircraft to drop retardant and water. Still, the number of people evacuated was down by about half from the day before, to around 100,000, authorities said, and the fire was reported 35 per cent contained.