Calif. wildfire death toll hits 63; sheriff says hundreds still missing
Volunteer rescue workers search for human remains in the rubble of homes burned in the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, Thursday. Dozens of people died and perhaps several hundred are unaccounted for in the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century. AP PHOTO/TERRY CHEA
Investigators recover human remains at a home burned in the Camp Fire, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, in Magalia, Calif. Many of the missing in the deadly Northern California wildfire are elderly residents in Magalia, a forested town of about 11,000 north of the destroyed town of Paradise. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Gloves rest in a scorched car after the Camp Fire burned through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Investigators recover human remains at a home burned in the Camp Fire, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, in Magalia, Many of the missing in the deadly Northern California wildfire are elderly residents in Magalia, a forested town of about 11,000 north of the destroyed town of Paradise, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Investigators use a bucket to help recover human remains at a home burned in the Camp fire, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, in Magalia, Calif. Many of the missing in the deadly Northern California wildfire are elderly residents in Magalia, a forested town of about 11,000 north of the destroyed town of Paradise. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A sheriff’s deputy recovers the remains of a Camp Fire victim from an overturned car in Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Suzanne Kaksonen, an evacuee of the Camp Fire, and her cockatoo Buddy camp at a makeshift shelter outside a Walmart store in Chico, Calif., on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018. Kaksonen lost her Paradise home in the blaze. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Suzanne Kaksonen, an evacuee of the Camp Fire, and her cockatoo Buddy camp at a makeshift shelter outside a Walmart store in Chico, Calif., on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018. Kaksonen lost her Paradise home in the blaze. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
A sign hangs beside a tent at a makeshift shelter for evacuees of the Camp Fire in Chico, Calif., on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
CHICO, Calif. (AP) — At least 63 people are now dead from a Northern California wildfire, and officials say they have a missing persons list with 631 names on it in an ever-evolving accounting of the victims of the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century.
The high number of missing people probably includes some who fled the blaze and don’t realize they’ve been reported missing, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said. He said he’s making the list public so people can see if they are on it and let authorities know they survived.
“The chaos that we were dealing with was extraordinary,” Honea said of the early crisis hours last week. “Now we’re trying to go back out and make sure that we’re accounting for everyone.”
Some 52,000 people have been displaced to shelters, the homes of friends and relatives, to motels — and to a Walmart parking lot and an adjacent field in Chico, a dozen miles away from the ashes.
At the vast shelter parking lot, evacuees from California’s deadliest fire wonder if they still have homes, if their neighbors are still alive — and where they will go when their place of refuge shuts down in a matter of days.
“It’s cold and scary,” said Lilly Batres, 13, one of the few children there, who fled with her family from the forested town of Magalia and didn’t know whether her home survived. “I feel like people are going to come into our tent.”
The Northern California fire that began a week earlier obliterated the town of Paradise . Searchers have pulled bodies from incinerated homes and cremated cars, but in many cases, the victims may have been reduced to bits of bones and ash. The latest toll: 63 dead and 9,800 homes destroyed.
At the other end of the state, more residents were being allowed back into the zone of a wildfire that torched an area the size of Denver west of Los Angeles. The fire was 62 percent contained after destroying nearly 550 homes and other buildings. At least three deaths were reported.
Air quality across large swaths of California remains so poor due to huge plumes of smoke that schools from Sacramento to the Pacific Coast were closed on Friday, and San Francisco’s iconic open-air cable cars were pulled off the streets.
Northern California’s Camp Fire was 40 percent contained Thursday, but there was no timeline for allowing evacuees to return because of the danger. Power lines are still down, roads closed, and firefighters are still dousing embers, authorities said.
