Hundreds missing as fire toll rises
California 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
Your mother’s somewhere and you don’t know where she’s at. You don’t know if she’s safe. Sol Bechtold, looking for his 75-year-old mother
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 rela- tives 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.