California wildfire death toll hits 31 as six more bodies found
Video report by ITV News Washington Correspondent Robert Moore
The death toll from a series of wildfires sweeping through parts of California has risen to 31 after the bodies of six more people were found.
The death toll is expected to rise further, with almost 230 people unaccounted for.
Some 29 of the deaths are from the Camp Fire in the north of the state, making it equal to the 1933 Griffith Park disaster in Los Angeles, the deadliest wildfire in state history
Two other people died in the Woolsey Fire, which has hit the luxury beach town of Malibu in the south of the state.
Both fires, as well as the Hill Fire which broke out close to Thousand Oaks -the city hit by a deadly mass shooting on Wednesday - continue to rage, with gusty winds making it difficult for firefighters to bring the blaze under-control.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said at least five search teams are working in Paradise — a town of 27,000 that was largely incinerated on Thursday — and in surrounding communities.
Authorities called in a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists to help identify victims of the most destructive wildfire in California history.
By early afternoon, one of the two black hearses stationed in Paradise had picked up another set of remains.
People looking for friends or relatives called evacuation centres, hospitals, police and the coroner’s office.
Officials and relatives held out hope that many of those unaccounted for were safe and simply had no mobile phones or other ways to contact loved ones.
The sheriff’s office in the stricken northern county set up a missing persons call centre to help connect people.
California Governor Jerry Brown said the state is requesting aid from Donald Trump’s administration.
However, the President has blamed “poor” forest management for the fires, a statement which has seen him widely criticised.
Mr Brown told a press briefing that federal and state governments must do more forest management, but said that was not the source of the problem.
“Managing all the forests in everywhere we can does not stop climate change,” Mr Brown said.
“And those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies that we’re now witnessing, and will continue to witness in the coming years.”
Firefighters battling the Camp fire with shovels and bulldozers, flame retardants and hoses expected wind gusts up to 40 mph overnight on Sunday.
Officials said they expect the wind to die down by midday on Monday, but there was still no rain in sight.
More than 8,000 firefighters in all battled three large wildfires burning across nearly 400 square miles in Northern and Southern California, with out-of-state crews arriving.
In Northern California, Mr Honea said Butte County consulted anthropologists from California State University at Chico because, in some cases, investigators have been able to recover only bones and bone fragments.
The devastation was so complete in some neighbourhoods that “it’s very difficult to determine whether or not there may be human remains there,” Mr Honea said.
Authorities were also bringing in a DNA lab and encouraged people with missing relatives to submit samples to aid in identifying the dead after the blaze destroyed more than 6,700 buildings, nearly all of them homes.
Firefighters gained modest ground overnight against the blaze, which grew slightly to 170 square miles from the day before but was 25% contained, up from 20 %, according to the state fire agency, Cal Fire.
But Cal Fire spokesman Bill Murphy warned that gusty winds predicted into Monday morning could spark “explosive fire behaviour”.
A series of wildfires in Northern California wine country last fall killed 44 people and destroyed more than 5,000 homes.