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PARADISE, Calif. – Shovels and shovels crashed against debris as a research team dressed in a white suit sieved the remains of a residential lot in this fire-ravaged city, in the hope of locating those who would not have survived the deadliest fire in California.
Where modest single storey houses, shaded by tall pines and leafy trees, were at the beginning of last week, there was little left of ash and rubble. The team moved cautiously during Tuesday's destruction, trying to determine what part of the house it was.
"It's literally the whole room, it just collapsed here," said a researcher, while the ashes of the campfire still on fire made the atmosphere blurry and gray.
Hundreds of people have remained missing since the camp fire erupted on Thursday morning and swept through Paradise, a population of 26,000, and neighboring communities in Butte County, northern California. On Wednesday morning, it burned 135,000 acres, destroyed 7,600 single-family homes and killed at least 48.
On Wednesday, a delegation of government and federal officials, including Governor Jerry Brown and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, visited the devastated Butte County area, where both parties called for a loosening of rhetoric , starting with President Trump who launched tweets accusing California of "mismanagement" of its forests and threatening to withhold billions of dollars in funding.
"I do not want to point fingers," Zinke said at a joint press conference with the governor in Chico, California, near the burning zone. "We will all have to work together to find solutions."
Shortly after being briefed by Mr. Zinke, Mr. Trump posted a more conciliatory tweet: "I just spoke to Governor Jerry Brown to let him know that we are with him and the people of California!"
On his way to assessing the damage caused by the Woolsey Fire in Southern California, Mr. Zinke said in an interview that he had never seen more than a single person. a fire was devastated only what he had seen in Paradise. He noted that the city remained surrounded by overgrown forests and that priority should be given to reducing the density of these woodlands to reduce the more catastrophic fires. "In the end, there are just too many dead and dying materials," Zinke said.
To find and identify the dead as quickly as possible, the Butte County Sheriff, Kory Honea, brought nearly 200 research officers, as well as dog teams trained to search for human remains. Researchers also work with anthropologists who can distinguish whether the remains are human or animal.
The death toll has been steadily increasing over the past few days, and every time the Sheriff Honea has to communicate this increase to the public, his face seems to tighten a little more with stress and sadness.
"My sincere hope is that I should not come here every night and report a higher and higher number," he said at a press conference earlier this week.
But given the speed with which the fire swept the region, decimating almost everything in its path, it is likely that more deaths will be discovered. Hundreds are still missing.
On Tuesday, in Paradise, the research teams deployed to target the places where the missing persons were living or had been seen for the last time. Remains have been found in cars and homes.
On a lot in the north of the city, sheriff firefighters and deputies joined a handful of researchers wearing yellow helmets to search what was once a home and a hangar, trying to determine if anyone was there. one spent his last moments there. At the edge of the track, garbage cans and recycling bins were molten lumps.
"What are you coming?" Asked a researcher, while other people nearby were trying to figure out what could be gnarly metal buffs around them.
While firefighters continue to fight wildfires in California, at least 50 people were reported to have died in the flames. Meanwhile, the survivors return home. Erin Ailworth reports from the WSJ. Photo: Noah Berger / Associated Press
Finally, two members of the team found a shape still recognizable.
"It's a bed, we're going to turn it over," said one of them, wishing to help extract the rest of the bed frame from the ashes that had buried him. They did not find any human remains below. Only more ash.
Among the biggest challenges faced by investigators seeking to identify the dead, there is the state of their remains, which may include only a few teeth or bone fragments. In some cases, there may be nothing left.
"I suspect some will be completely consumed," Sheriff Honea said.
The remains found are sent to the Sacramento County morgue, where forensic experts will use fingerprints, dental records and medical records to try to identify them. Since some of these documents may not exist – or may themselves have been consumed by a fire at the local dental offices – the California Department of Justice is also working with a private company to treat the DNA.
California assistant Jim Wood, a forensic dentist, went on Wednesday in Butte County to help with identification. He did the same thing after the Tubbs fire last year, which killed 22 people in the Santa Rosa area in his district.
Naming the dead of this fire, he said, was heartbreaking because they belonged to his own community and lived in streets that he knew well.
On Tuesday, Mr. Wood asked to repeat the experience, saying it was disappointing to realize that the city of Paradise, as the locals knew it, has virtually disappeared.
"It brings back a lot of memories," he said. "We have just experienced that, and now we are reliving it."
Jim Carlton contributed to this article.
Write to Erin Ailworth at [email protected]
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