Hope fades for Calif survivors as fire toll 42

Paradise (US), November 13 

Search teams on Tuesday fanned out across the charred landscape of Paradise, California, looking for human remains as authorities prepare for a rise in the deathcount from the state’s deadliest wildfire.

The “Camp Fire” blaze still raging in northern California has killed at least 42 persons. Another 228 have been listed as missing, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said.

Another two persons died in the separate Woolsey Fire that has destroyed 435 structures and displaced about 200,000 persons in the mountains and foothills near Southern California’s Malibu coast, west of Los Angeles.

“Camp Fire” — already ranked as the most destructive on record in California in terms of property losses - has consumed more than 7,100 homes and other structures since igniting on Thursday in Butte County’s Sierra foothills, about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco.

A total of 150 search-and-recovery personnel were due to arrive on Tuesday, bolstering 13 coroner-led recovery teams in the fire zone, Honea said. More than 8,000 firefighters are already battling wildfires statewide.

The 42 confirmed fatalities marked the highest death toll in history from a single California wildfire, Honea said. — Agencies