Death Toll Grows as Deadliest Fire in California History Keeps Getting Worse
The death toll for the largest wildfire in California history has risen to 48 after six more bodies were discovered in the town of Paradise.
The Camp Fire has now become the deadliest fire in the state’s history, surpassing the previous record set by a 1933 fire that killed 29 in Griffith Park in Los Angeles.
At a news conference Tuesday, Sheriff Kory Honea said that the latest victims were found inside their homes.
The Camp Fire continues to grow as more than 130,000 acres of land are still burning in Butte County and only 35 percent of the fire is contained, Fox News reported.
To give you an idea of just how big the #CampFire burning in Butte County is, we compared it to the size of the South Bay. https://t.co/n7NDeKb9bD pic.twitter.com/csKO95KDU7
— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) November 12, 2018
More than 6,000 firefighters are on the scene as they attempt to control the deadly blaze.
Honea recounted the bravery of the men and women who have been impacted by this fire, even in his own department.
He told reporters that he has around 30 staff members “who are personally affected by this fire, having been evacuated from their homes, and in some cases, having lost their homes.”
Honea also said that he had to tell his staff to take time off for rest because they weren’t going to do it on their own.
“We had asked them if they would take time off and they wouldn’t do it because they were so committed to this,” he said.
Another official echoed those sentiments, saying that fighting the fire wasn’t “a job,” but rather a “passion and a calling.”
The devastating fire continues to rip through Butte County. More than 7,700 homes have been destroyed in the town of Paradise alone.
Fox News reported that the bodies of many of the 48 fatalities have been found in homes, burned out cars or even next to vehicles.
The news agency said that in some of the cases, “there were only charred fragments of bone, so small that coroner’s investigators used a wire basket to sift and sort them.”
California Gov. Jerry Brown told a group of reporters on Tuesday that the state was “pretty much maxed out” from fighting several deadly fires throughout the region.
Brown said the state was doing everything it could do to put an end to the fires, but admitted that there are “some things only God can do.”
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