Number of death victims reaches 25 forest fires at both ends of California | American News

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, DON THOMPSON and PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press

PARADISE, Calif. (AP) – Authorities have called a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify the dead, while research continued for victims of the country's most destructive wildfire. California history. The fire record at both ends of the state was 25 Sunday and is expected to increase.

The worst fires occurred in northern California, where the flames reduced Paradise's 27,000 population to a smoking ruin a few days ago and continued to rage in surrounding communities. Only the number of people killed in the fire, at least 23, makes it the third most deadly ever recorded in this state.

Butte County Sheriff, Kory Honea, said the county was calling on more rescuers and consulting with anthropologists at California State University in Chico, because in some cases, "the only remnants we can find are bones. or bone fragments ".

"It weighs heavily on all of us," Honea said.

The authorities also introduced a DNA laboratory and encouraged people with missing relatives to submit samples to identify the dead.

The sheriff's department has compiled a list of 110 missing persons, but officials have hoped that many of them would be safe, but they would have no cell phone, or any other means of contacting their loved ones.

Firefighters gained modest ground overnight against the fire, which increased slightly to 170 square kilometers (270 square kilometers) the day before and was controlled to 25%, compared to 20% today. he said, David Clark, spokesman for Cal Fire.

Clark said Sunday that strong winds and dry conditions were expected over the next 24 hours: "We are at a pivot point now."

The fire destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, almost all of them houses.

Two people were also found dead in a forest fire in southern California, where flames devastated mansions and houses in Malibu in the working-class suburbs of Los Angeles. The badly burned bodies were found in a long residential alley in Malibu, home to a multitude of Hollywood celebrities.

Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian West, Guillermo del Toro and Martin Sheen are among those forced to leave their homes.

Flames have also raged on both sides of Thousand Oaks, the southern California city still mourning after the 12-person massacre of a shootout at a country music bar on Wednesday night.

Cal Fire Battalion Chief Lucas Spelman said the largest of the two fires in the region, Malibu, has reached 337 km2 and has been controlled to 10%, but firefighters are preparing for a new fire. wave of that shot out of the way to the coast.

The number of structures lost in the two fires in southern California has risen to 179, according to authorities.

In total, a quarter of a million people were under an eviction order throughout the state, officials said.

The drought, the mild climate attributed to climate change and the building of houses deeper into the forests have led to more destructive forest fire seasons in California, which start earlier and last longer.

California has emerged from a drought that lasted five years last year, but the climate is very dry in 2018. A large portion of the two-thirds of the population of the north of the state is abnormally dried.

In Paradise, a city founded in the 1800s, locals who remained on the scene trying to save their property or who managed to return despite the evacuation order found cars and houses cremated.

Wearing masks because the air was still charged with smoke, people avoided the metal that had melted into cars or jet skis by inspecting their ravaged neighborhoods. Some cried when they saw that there was nothing left.

Jan McGregor, 81, has returned to his small two-bedroom house in Paradise with the help of his grandson's firefighter. He found his house leveled – a large metal safe and the pipes of his septic system are the only recognizable traces. The safe was punctured by bullet holes caused by guns inside that exploded under extreme heat.

He lived in paradise for nearly 80 years and moved there in 1939, when the city had only 3,000 inhabitants and was nicknamed Poverty Ridge.

"We knew that paradise was a prime target for wildfires over the years," he said. "We brought them to the city limits – oh, yes – but nothing like that."

McGregor said that he probably would not rebuild: "I have nothing here to return."

This story has been corrected so that the survivor's name is assigned to McGregor instead of MacGregor.

Associated press editors Daisy Nguyen, Olga R. Rodriguez and Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco contributed to this report. Darlene Superville contributed from Paris.

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