Death toll from California wildfires reaches 29 as crews continue to search for bodies in ruins

● Hundreds still missing in state’s deadliest single blaze in history

death toll from the wildfire that incinerated the Californian town of Paradise and surrounding areas climbed to 29 yesterday as crews continue searching for bodies in the smouldering ruins.

Nearly 230 people are unaccounted for after a wildfire that matched the mark for the deadliest single blaze in the state’s history.

State-wide the number of dead stood at 31, with two victims in southern California, as wildfires raged at both ends of the state.

Ten search teams were working in Paradise – a town of 27,000 that was engulfed by flames on Thursday – and in surrounding communities in northern California’s Sierra Nevada foothills.

Authorities called in a DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify what in some cases were only bones or bone fragments.

More than 8,000 firefighters battled wildfires that scorched more than 325 square miles of the state, with the flames feeding on dry brush and driven by winds that had a blowtorch effect.

“This is truly a tragedy that all Californians can understand and respond to,” governor Jerry Brown said.

“It’s a time to pull together and work through these tragedies.”

California is requesting emergency aid from the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has blamed what he called poor forest management for the fires.

The governor said the federal and state governments must do more forest management but climate change is the greater source of the problem.

“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,” he added. Drought and warmer weather attributed to climate change, and the building of homes deeper into forests, have led to longer and more destructive wildfire seasons in California.

While California officially emerged from a five-year drought last year, much of the northern two-thirds of the state is abnormally dry.

In southern California, firefighters beat back a new round of winds on Sunday and the fire’s spread was believed to have been largely stopped, though extremely low humidity and gusty Santa Ana winds were in the forecast through at least untiltoday.

Some of the thousands of people forced from their homes were allowed to return, and authorities reopened US 101, a major freeway through the fire zone in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Malibu celebrities and mobile-home dwellers in nearby mountains were slowthe JERRY BROWN Californian state governor ly learning whether their homes had been spared or reduced to ash.

Two people were killed in Malibu, and the fire destroyed at least 370 or so structures, authorities said.

The fire grew to more than 143 square miles and was only 20 per cent contained.

Celebrities whose coastal homes were damaged or destroyed or who were forced to flee expressed sympathy for the less famous and offered their gratitude to firefighters.

Actor Gerard Butler said on Instagram that his Malibu home was “half-gone”, adding he was “inspired as ever by the courage, spirit and sacrifice of firefighters”.

Tad Teays, who fled Paradise ahead of the fire, waited for word of his 90-year-old dementia-stricken mother, who lived about a mile from him in town.

“By the time I evacuated and tried to get to her house, that area was already engulfed by fire,” he said. “I don’t know where she is. We’ve called shelters, been to shelters, filed a couple of missing-persons reports”

Megan James, of Newfoundland, Canada, searched via Twitter from the other side of the continent for information about her aunt and uncle, whose house in Paradise burned down and whose vehicles were still there. Yesterday, she asked on Twitter for someone to take over the posts, saying she is “so emotionally and mentally exhausted”.

“I need to sleep and cry,” James added.

In northern California, where more than 6,700 buildings have been destroyed in the blaze that obliterated Paradise, firefighters contended with wind gusts up to 40mph overnight.

The 29 dead matched the deadliest single fire on record, a 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

“This is truly a tragedy that all Californians can understand and respond to. It’s time to pull together and work through.”