Hell in Paradise | Grim search for more fire victims, 31 dead across California

As wildfires raged at both ends of the state, officials released another grim statistic: six more bodies discovered in the burned-over town of Paradise and outlying areas, bringing the death toll there to 29 and matching the record for the deadliest single blaze in California history.

Statewide the death toll stood at 31, including two dead in Southern California, with authorities still searching for bodies and 228 people unaccounted for.

Ten search teams were working in Paradise — a town of 27,000 that was largely incinerated 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.

All told, more 8,000 firefighters battled wildfires that scorched at least 1,040 square kilometers 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,” Gov. Jerry Brown said yesterday [Macau time]. “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 that the federal and state governments must do more forest management but that 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,” Brown said.

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 yesterday and the fire’s growth was believed to have been largely stopped, though extremely low humidity and gusty Santa Ana winds were in the forecast through at least Tuesday.

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

Malibu celebrities and mobile-home dwellers in nearby mountains were slowly learning whether their homes had been spared or reduced to ash. Two people were killed in Malibu, and the fire destroyed at least 180 or so structures.

At night, the fire had grown to more than 344 square kilometers and was 15 percent contained, authorities said.

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.”

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 40 mph (64 kph) overnight, the fire jumping 300 feet across Lake Oroville.

The state fire agency said yesterday that the fire had grown to 303 square kilometres and was 25 percent contained.

The magnitude of the devastation was beginning to set in even as the blaze raged on. Public safety officials toured the Paradise area to begin discussing the recovery. Much of what makes the city function was gone. Gillian Flaccus & Don Thompson, Paradise, AP