25 dead as brutal wildfires go on

Rescue workers recover bodies in fire-ravaged California town

PARADISE, United States - The death toll from the fires hitting northern California town of Paradise had reached 23 while two people were also found dead in southern California, bringing the total number of fatalities statewide to 25 on Saturday.

Sheriff's investigators have begun the agonizing task of scouring through the wreckage of California's most destructive fire on record in search of the dead.

With the entire town of Paradise wiped out and the fire still raging furiously in surrounding communities, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the county was bringing in a fifth search and recovery team. An anthropology team from California State University, Chico was also assisting, because in some cases "the only remains we are able to find are bones or bone fragments".

"This weighs heavy on all of us," Honea said. "Myself and especially those staff members who are out there doing what is important work but certainly difficult work."

The victims have not been identified, but the department has a roster of 110 people believed missing. Officials hope many of the elderly on the list simply are elsewhere without cellphones or away to contact loved ones. Honea said the agency was also bringing in a mobile DNA lab and encouraged people with missing relatives to submit samples to aid in the identification process.

The death toll made the Camp Fire the third-deadliest on record in the state, another statistic for a blaze now logged at 425 square kilometers that has cost at least $8.1 million to fight so far, said Steve Kaufmann, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Entire neighborhoods were leveled, destroying more than 6,700 buildings, almost all of them homes, and the business district was destroyed by a blaze that threatened to explode again with the same fury that largely incinerated the foothill town.

The air in Paradise still clogged with smoke, residents who stayed behind to try to save their property or who managed to get back to their neighborhoods found cars incinerated and homes reduced to rubble.

Charred remains

Just a day ago, Arik Fultz was feeding the horses on his ranch near Malibu.

Now, after wildfires roared through parts of Southern California, there's nothing left of his ranch but charred remains. His family and his 52 horses survived. But two houses, two barns, three trailers and decades of accumulated possessions are gone.

"It just doesn't feel real that it's all gone," he said.

Southern Californians like Fultz battered by the wildfires got to take a breath on Saturday and take store of what the wildfires did to them. A lull in fierce winds that drove a pair of destructive fires allowed firefighters to make their first real progress in stopping the blazes.

But a sustained stretch of vicious winds, and the strong possibility of a new round of troubles, were set to start on Sunday.

Two people were found dead amid the larger of the two fires, Los Angeles County sheriff's Chief John Benedict said on Saturday.

The severely burned bodies were discovered in a long residential driveway on a stretch of Mulholland Highway in Malibu, where most of the surrounding structures had burned.

Benedict did not have any details about the identities of the dead. He said detectives were investigating.

The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area has tweeted that the wildfire has destroyed the TV and movie production location known as "Western Town" at the historic Paramount Ranch.

Southern California's fire had destroyed at least 150 homes, from Malibu mansions to modest dwellings in inland canyon communities.

Ap - Afp

(China Daily 11/12/2018 page11)