The search for victims of a catastrophic blaze that reduced a northern California town to ashes has intensified as authorities posted an expanded list of over 600 people reported missing in the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.
At least 63 people have been confirmed dead so far in the Camp Fire, which erupted a week ago in the drought-parched Sierra foothills 280 km north of San Francisco and now ranks as one of the most lethal single US wildfires since the turn of the last century.
Authorities attributed the high death toll in part to the staggering speed with which the wind-driven flames, fuelled by desiccated scrub and trees, raced through Paradise, a town of 27,000 residents.
Nearly 9000 homes and other buildings, including most of the town, were incinerated last Thursday night, hours after the blaze erupted, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
What was left was a ghostly, smoky expanse of empty lots covered in ash and strewn with twisted wreckage and debris.
Thousands of additional structures were still threatened by the blaze, and as many as 50,000 people remained under evacuation orders. An army of firefighters, many from distant states, laboured to contain and suppress the flames.
The revised official roster of 631 individuals whose whereabouts and fate remained unknown is more than double the number of people Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said on Wednesday night had been reported missing by loved ones.
The sheriff has asked relatives of the missing to submit DNA samples to hasten identification of the dead.
The latest blazes have capped a pair of calamitous wildfire seasons in California that scientists largely attribute to prolonged drought they say is symptomatic of climate change.
The cause of the fires are being investigated. Two electric utilities have said they experienced equipment problems close to the origins of the blazes around the time they were reported.
The White House said on Thursday that President Donald Trump, who has been criticised as having politicised the fires by casting blame on forest mismanagement, plans to visit the fire zones on Saturday to meet with displaced residents.
Cal Fire said that 40 per cent of the Camp Fire's perimeter had been contained, up from 35 per cent, even as the footprint of the blaze grew to 57,000 hectares. Containment of the Woolsey fire grew to 57 per cent.
But the impact of smoke and soot was felt far and wide. Public schools in Sacramento and surrounding districts 145 km to the south, and as far away as San Francisco and Oakland, announced classes would be cancelled on Friday due to worsening air quality from the Camp Fire.
Australian Associated Press
