Page 8A
NATION
East Oregonian
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Dead in cars and homes: Northern CA fire toll at 29
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
AND DON THOMPSON
Associated Press
PARADISE, Calif. —
The dead were found in
burned-out cars, in the smol-
dering ruins of their homes,
or next to their vehicles,
apparently overcome by
smoke and flames before
they could jump in behind
the wheel and escape. In
some cases, there were
only charred fragments of
bone, so small that coroner’s
investigators used a wire
basket to sift and sort them.
At least 29 people were
confirmed dead in the wild-
fire that turned the North-
ern California town of Par-
adise and outlying areas into
hell on earth, equaling the
deadliest blaze in state his-
tory, and the search for bod-
ies continued Monday.
Nearly 230 people were
unaccounted for by the sher-
iff’s reckoning, four days
after the fire swept over the
town of 27,000 and practi-
cally wiped it off the map
with flames so fierce that
authorities brought in a
mobile DNA lab and foren-
sic anthropologists to help
identify the dead.
Meanwhile, a landowner
near where the blaze began,
Betsy Ann Cowley, said she
got an email from Pacific
Gas & Electric Co. the day
before the fire last week tell-
ing her that crews needed
to come onto her property
because the utility’s power
lines were causing sparks.
PG&E had no comment on
the email, and state officials
said the cause of the inferno
was under investigation.
As the search for vic-
tims dragged on, friends
and relatives of the miss-
ing called hospitals, police,
shelters and the coroner’s
office in hopes of learning
what became of their loved
ones. Paradise was a popular
retirement community, and
about a quarter of the popu-
lation was over 65.
Tad Teays awaited word
AP Photo/Noah Berger
Leveled residences line a block following the Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif., on Monday.
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
Left: An air tanker drops water on a fire along the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway. Right: Firefighters battle a fire
along the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway in Simi Valley, Calif., on Monday.
on his 90-year-old demen-
tia-stricken mother. Darlina
Duarte was desperate for
information about her half-
brother, a diabetic who was
largely housebound because
he had lost his legs. And
Barbara Hall tried in vain
to find out whether her aunt
and the woman’s husband,
who are in their 80s and 90s,
made it out alive from their
retirement community.
“Did they make it in their
car? Did they get away? Did
their car go over the edge of
a mountain somewhere? I
just don’t know,” said Hall,
adding that the couple had
only a landline and calls
were not going through to it.
Megan James, of New-
foundland, Canada, searched
via Twitter from the other
side of the continent for
information about her aunt
and uncle, whose house in
Paradise burned down and
whose vehicles were still
there. On Monday, she asked
on Twitter for someone to
take over the posts, saying
she is “so emotionally and
mentally exhausted.”
“I need to sleep and
cry,” James added. “Just
PRAY. Please.”
The blaze was part of
an outbreak of wildfires
on both ends of the state.
Together, they were blamed
for 31 deaths, including two
in celebrity-studded Mal-
ibu in Southern California,
where firefighters appeared
to be gaining ground against
a roughly 143-square-mile
blaze that destroyed at least
370 structures, with hun-
dreds more feared lost.
Some of the thousands
of people forced from
their homes by the blaze
were allowed to return,
and authorities reopened
U.S. 101, a major free-
way through the fire zone
in Los Angeles and Ventura
counties.
Malibu celebrities and
mobile-home dwellers in
nearby mountains were
slowly learning whether
their homes had been spared
or reduced to ash.
All told, more than
8,000 firefighters statewide
were battling wildfires that
scorched more than 325
square miles, the flames
feeding on dry brush and
driven by blowtorch winds.
In Northern California,
fire crews still fighting the
blaze that obliterated Par-
adise contended with wind
gusts up to 40 mph over-
night, the flames jumping
300 feet across Lake Oro-
ville. The fire had grown to
177 square miles and was 25
percent contained, authori-
ties said.
There were tiny signs of
some sense of order return-
ing to Paradise and also
anonymous gestures meant
to rally the spirits of fire-
fighters who have worked in
a burned-over wasteland for
days.
Large American flags
stuck into the ground lined
both sides of the road at the
town limits, and temporary
stop signs appeared over-
night at major intersections.
Downed power lines that
had blocked roads were cut
away, and crews took down
burned trees with chain
saws.
The 29 dead in North-
ern California matched
the deadliest single fire on
record, a 1933 blaze in Grif-
fith Park in Los Angeles. A
series of wildfires in North-
ern California’s wine coun-
try last fall killed 44 peo-
ple and destroyed more than
5,000 homes.
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