Frantic search for those missing in fire’s wrath
Amid desperation, search teams hunt for any remains
PARADISE, Calif. — The number of deaths from California’s worst fire rose to 48 on Tuesday as authorities and family members mounted desperate searches for the hundreds still missing.
The Camp fire has scorched 130,000 acres since Thursday, ripping through mountain towns in Butte County. More than 8,800 structures — mostly homes in Paradise — were turned to rubble as the blaze charred the region.
The death toll from the fire jumped Monday when officials said they recovered the remains of 13 people as teams continued to search the burned-out rubble of thousands of lost homes. The remains of 10 people were located in Paradise, and three were found in the Concow area.
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 the death toll could rise.
As of midday Tuesday, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea’s office had identified only a few of the dead.
James Wiley said sheriff ’s deputies informed him that his father, Carl, was among the dead, but the younger Wiley hadn’t been able to leave his property in the fire area to see for himself. The elder Wiley, 77, was a tire-recapper, and the family lived in Alaska for many years before moving to Butte County decades ago.
Ernest Foss, 63, moved to Paradise eight years ago because the high cost of living pushed him out of the David Carr hugs neighbor Riad Abdel-Gawad as his partner, Rachael Bailey, hugs Riad’s wife, Meadow Saleh, left. They lost their homes in Westlake Village in the Woolsey Fire. San Francisco Bay area, according to his daughter, Angela Loo. He had swollen limbs and couldn’t walk. He had also been on oxygen.
Loo told KTVU-TV in Oakland that her father taught music out of their home in San Francisco and turned the living room into a studio.
Jesus Fernandez, a 48year-old Concow resident, died along with his beloved dog, King.
Amid the wreckage, search teams continued to sift through rubble and ash. Residents are holding out hope that their loved ones who went missing when the fire tore through their towns might be found.
The confusing search for hundreds of missing people has been complicated by many factors: bad cellphone service. A lack of access to burned-out areas. A sheer scattering of people across the region who are staying in shelters, hotels, friends’ houses and their vehicles and may have not gotten in touch with loved ones.
For some, it’s old family grudges. People who had long stopped talking to each other now just want to know if they’re alive. Harry Gramps Jr., 61, said he hadn’t talked to his oldest son, Chaz Gramps, of Paradise, in quite some time.
But on Tuesday, that didn’t matter. Harry Gramps just wanted to know his son was OK.
“I just want to hear from him or at least from somebody that might know something,” Gramps said. “He’s the type of person that would call immediately.”
He said his son is 30, a husband and a father to two young girls.
On Tuesday, crews were working to build up defenses around the town of Cherokee near the Feather River and Stirling City, northeast of Paradise and Magalia, which were both devastated by the fire.
Two of the biggest question marks facing firefighters will be how the fire behaves when it hits swaths of landscape to the fire’s east and north.
Officials say the area has no documented history of fire, meaning it’s likely extremely overgrown and dense, which can create explosive fire conditions.
At the other end of the state, firefighters continued making progress against the 150-square-mile Woolsey Fire, which has killed two people in Malibu and destroyed 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 au- thorities 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 35 percent contained.
The fire burned through part of a former research site that once housed a nuclear reactor and has been undergoing a yearslong waste cleanup. But measurements taken over the weekend found no abnormal levels of radiation or hazardous compounds, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control said.