PARADISE, Calif. -- Authorities moved to set up a rapid DNA-analysis system and provide cadaver dogs, mobile morgues and more search teams in an intensified effort to find and identify victims of the deadliest wildfire in California history, an inferno that killed at least 48 people.
The flames all but obliterated the Northern California town of Paradise, population 27,000, and ravaged surrounding areas last Thursday. The exact number of missing was unclear, but many friends and relatives of those living in the fire zone said they hadn't heard from loved ones. Some went to shelters looking for the missing.
The Camp Fire, as the blaze that ripped through Paradise is known, is about 30 percent contained, and has burned 125,000 acres.
It is also the most destructive wildfire in California history, with more than 7,700 structures destroyed, most of them homes.
Five days after the blaze, more than 1,000 people were at more than a half-dozen shelters set up for evacuees. At the Neighborhood Church in Chico, counselors, chaplains and nursing students from California State University, Chico, were available to help.
Volunteers cooked meals, and there was a large bulletin board with information about missing people.
Eddie Lazarom, who fled Paradise on foot before getting a lift from a UPS truck, was among those staying at the church. He said he had yet to hear from his three grandchildren, ages 22, 24 and 28.
"I am really worried about them. They have common sense, I'm sure, but I'd hate to find out later that they burned up," he said.
Greg Gibson went to the shelter for information about his neighbors. He doesn't know whether they tried to leave but says the fire broke out so quickly that if they hesitated, they would have had trouble.
"It happened so fast. I would have been such an easy decision to stay, but it was the wrong choice," Gibson said.
Among the missing in Paradise are many older residents of the Ridgewood Mobile Home Park, a close-knit retirement community of 97 pastel-colored homes, where residents were so tightly bound that they ate together, took walks together and often prayed together. Just 20 or so of those people have been accounted for by the park's owner, Glen Fuller.
Ridgewood was flattened by the fire. Because the fire rolled in from the east -- the park sits east of downtown -- it is likely that the people of Ridgewood were among the first to be hit by the flames. Compounding the danger, many of the residents were older, making a hasty escape difficult.
This means that those who made it out have been left to wait for news of the people they cared for most.
"It's awful -- it's just awful," said Sheila Schriber Cox, 64, a retired family counselor who fled with her dog Daisy, leaving behind her walker, her oxygen tank and a stack of Bibles she had meant to distribute.
The search for the dead, meanwhile, was drawing on portable devices that can identify genetic material in a couple of hours, rather than days or weeks.
"In many circumstances, without rapid DNA technology, it's just such a lengthy process," said Frank DePaolo, a deputy commissioner of the New York City medical examiners' office, which has been at the forefront of the science of identifying human remains since 9/11 and is exploring how the office might use a rapid DNA device.
Still, experts said Tuesday that authorities may first try more traditional methods of identification such as examining dental records. That's in part because victims might have undergone dental X-rays but not personal DNA profiles. Medical records of bone fractures, prosthetics or implants also can be helpful.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea's office has identified four of the victims, publicly naming three.
James Wiley said sheriff's deputies informed him that his father, Carl, was among the dead, but the younger Wiley hadn't been able to leave his property in the fire area to see for himself. The elder Wiley, 77, was a tire-recapper, and the family lived in Alaska for many years before moving to Butte County decades ago.
James Wiley said his father was a stoic veteran, and the two had not spoken in six years. "Hey, I lost him a long time ago," the younger man said.
Also killed was Ernest Foss, 63, a musician who moved to Paradise eight years ago because the high cost of living pushed him out of the San Francisco Bay Area, according to his daughter, Angela Loo. He had swollen limbs and couldn't walk. He also had used oxygen assistance.
Loo told KTVU-TV in Oakland that her father taught music out of their home in San Francisco and turned the living room into a studio.
"I love that he shared his gift of music with me and so many others during his lifetime," she said. "He would want to be remembered for being a San Franciscan through and through."
Jesus Fernandez, a 48-year-old Concow resident, also died.
Myrna Pascua, whose husband was best friends with the man known as "Zeus," called him a "tireless provider, a dependable and loyal friend, a considerate neighbor, and loving father. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him."
Before the Paradise tragedy, the deadliest single fire on record in California was a 1933 blaze in Griffith Park in Los Angeles that killed 29.
MAKING PROGRESS
Fires continued to burn Tuesday in Southern California, where the Woolsey Fire had scorched more than 97,000 acres, an area roughly the size of Denver, and was continuing to threaten homes in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.
The flames roared to life again in a mountainous wilderness area Tuesday, sending up a huge plume of smoke near the community of Lake Sherwood. Still, firefighters made gains. The number of people evacuated was down by about half from the day before, to around 100,000, authorities said, and the fire was partially contained.
"We're getting the upper hand here. We're feeling better," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said.
Forecasters had warned of ongoing fire danger in the face of persistent Santa Ana winds, the withering, dry gusts that sweep out of the interior toward the coast, pushing back moist ocean breezes.
But, except for an apartment building that burned overnight in coastal Malibu, there was little sign of fire activity elsewhere in the vast fire zone west of Los Angeles.
Officials tempered optimism with caution, saying there were hot spots and pockets of intact vegetation.
"We are not out of the woods yet. We still have some incredibly tough conditions ahead of us," Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen said.
The death toll from the Woolsey Fire stood at two, a pair of adults found last week in a car overtaken by flames. They have not been identified.
The number of homes and other structures destroyed was 435. Damage assessment was continuing, with crews having to gain access to canyon areas on foot.
"That number is going to rise significantly," Osby said.
By Tuesday night, the Woolsey Fire was 40 percent contained.
The fire has burned more than 80 percent of National Park Service land in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, officials said.
A third fire, the Hill Fire in Ventura County, has been kept to about 4,500 acres and is 90 percent contained.
With winds gusting up to 86 mph Tuesday in San Diego County and a red-flag fire warning in effect, a utility company turned off electric power in some areas, and at least five school districts canceled classes. Around 25,000 customers in the county were without power, either from precautionary shutdowns or from losses caused by heavy winds.
Air quality continued to be rated "unhealthy" Tuesday in most of the Bay Area, a result of smoky air from the Camp Fire lingering near the ground, according to Walter Wallace, a spokesman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
The conditions in the region, which is southwest of the fire zone, are especially dangerous for older adults, young children, and those who suffer from asthma, bronchitis or lung disease. The agency is recommending that the public stay indoors when possible and avoid exercising outside.
The Sonoma County Office of Education closed all but two of its 40 school districts Tuesday. "School districts will decide tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. whether to reopen, based on the air quality reading at the time," said Jamie Hansen, a spokesman for the office.
Meteorologists are predicting "substantially better" air quality after Friday, Wallace said. "We're kind of hoping that we get some type of air or wind that can push some of this stuff out," he added.
Gov. Jerry Brown said California is "pretty well maxed out" from fighting several deadly wildfires, and he expressed gratitude for help from surrounding states and the federal government. He said the state is doing everything possible to prevent fires, but "some things only God can do."
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he canceled a trip to Asia and will visit the fire zones today and Thursday.
The cause of the fires remained under investigation, but the Camp and Woolsey fires broke out around the time and place two utilities reported equipment trouble. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, who takes office in January, sidestepped questions about what action should be taken against utilities if their power lines are found to be responsible.
Information for this article was contributed by Martha Mendoza, Gillian Flaccus, Sudhin Thanawala, Janie Har, Jocelyn Gecker, Olga R. Rodriguez, Amanda Lee Myers, Brian Skoloff, John Antczak and Christopher Weber of The Associated Press; and by Thomas Fuller of The New York Times.
A Section on 11/14/2018