Officials try to account for 1,000 missing in fires
CHICO, Calif. — With the confirmed death toll at 71 and the list of unaccounted for people more than 1,000, authorities in Northern California on Friday searched for those who perished and those who survived the wildfires ahead of a planned visit by President Donald Trump on Saturday.
Butte County spokeswoman Miranda Bowersox said the “unaccounted for” list released by the sheriff’s office late Thursday and then updated again Friday was an effort to put names out there so people can call in to say they are OK.
The roster of 1,000 names probably includes some who fled the blaze and do not realize they’ve been reported missing, Sheriff Kory Honea said.
Some on the list have been confirmed as dead by family and friends on social media. Others have been located, but authorities haven’t gotten around to marking them as found.
Authorities compiled the list by going back to listen to all the dispatch calls they received since the fire started, to make sure they didn’t miss anyone.
In last year’s catastrophic wildfires in California wine country, Sonoma County authorities at one point listed more than 2,000 people as missing. But they slowly whittled down the number.
In the end, 44 people died in several counties.
The wildfire this time practically burned the town of Paradise to the ground and heavily damaged the outlying communities of Magalia and Concow on Nov. 8, destroying 9,700 houses and 144 apartment buildings, authorities said.
Firefighters continued to gain ground against the blaze, which blackened 222 square miles but was 45 percent contained and posed no imminent threat to populated areas.
This patch of California, a former Gold Rush region in the Sierra Nevada foothills, is to some extent Trump country, with Trump beating Hillary Clinton in Butte County in 2016.
But some survivors resent that Trump took to Twitter two days after the disaster to blame the wildfires on forest mismanagement and threaten to withhold federal payments from California.
“If you insult people, then you go visit them, how do you think you’re going to be accepted? You’re not going to have a parade,” said Maggie Crowder of Magalia as she stood in a line outside a mall in Chico where government agencies set up an assistance center.
But Joe Estes, a 26-yearold salesman from Magalia who voted for Trump, said he feels good about the president’s visit Saturday and hopes it will focus attention on the need to rebuild.
“I think he should come, and hopefully help people and not put everybody down,” he said.
Firefighter Joshua Watson said he viewed the upcoming visit as a sign of support for firefighters, “no matter what you think about him.”