Dead in cars and homes: Northern California fire toll at 42

The dead were found in burned-out cars, in the smoldering 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 42 people were confirmed dead in the wildfire that turned the Northern California town of Paradise and outlying areas into hell on earth, making it the deadliest blaze in state history. The search for bodies continued Monday.

Hundreds of people were unaccounted for by the sheriff's reckoning, four days after the fire swept over the town of 27,000 and practically wiped it off the map with flames so fierce that authorities brought in a mobile DNA lab and forensic 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 telling 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 victims dragged on, friends and relatives of the missing 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 population was over 65.

Tad Teays awaited word on his 90-year-old dementia-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 Newfoundland, 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 44 deaths, including two in celebrity-studded Malibu in Southern California , where firefighters appeared to be gaining ground against a roughly 143-square-mile (370-square-kilometer) blaze that destroyed at least 370 structures, with hundreds more feared lost.

More than 15,000 more structures remained listed as threatened on Monday in an area so thick with smoke that visibility was reduced in some places to less than half a mile.

The bulk of the devastation and loss of life occurred in and around the town of Paradise, where flames reduced most of the buildings to ash and charred rubble on Thursday night, just hours after the blaze erupted.

At least 29 fatalities have been confirmed so far, a tally that ranks as the most ever from a single northern California wildfire - surpassing the 25 lives lost in the 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm - and ties the all-time statewide record set in 1933 by the Griffith Park blaze in Los Angeles.

Authorities reported two more people perished over the weekend in a separate blaze, dubbed the Woolsey Fire, that has destroyed 370 structures and displaced some 200,000 people in the mountains and foothills near Southern California's Malibu coast, west of Los Angeles.

President Donald Trump on Monday approved a major disaster declaration for California at the request of Governor Jerry Brown, hastening the availability of federal emergency assistance to fire-stricken regions of the state.

The fires have spread with an erratic intensity that has strained resources and kept firefighters struggling to keep up with the flames while catching many residents by surprise.

The remains of some of the Camp Fire victims were found in burned-out vehicles that were overrun by walls of fire as evacuees tried to flee by car in panic, only to be trapped in deadly knots of traffic gridlock on Thursday night.

"It was very scary," Mayor Jody Jones recounted of her family's own harrowing escape from their home as fire raged all around them.

"It took a long time to get out. There was fire on both sides of the car. You could feel the heat coming in through the car," she told CNN. Jones said her family is now living in their mobile home parked in a vacant lot.

HIGH WINDS RETURN
Perilous winds that stoked the fire through drought-parched brush and chaparral abated on Saturday, giving firefighters a chance to gain some ground against the flames.

High winds returned on Sunday but diminished again Monday morning, with crews by Monday night managing to carve containment lines around 30 percent of the Camp Fire perimeter, an area encompassing 113,000 acres (45,729 hectares) of scorched, smoldering terrain.

The Woolsey Fire has blackened more than 91,000 acres and was 20 percent contained as of Monday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).

In the wake of the chaotic evacuations in and around Paradise, at least 228 people were listed as unaccounted for early on Monday, according to Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.

Speaking on CNN, Honea held out hope many of the missing would turn up safe, but added: "Given what we've dealt with so far with casualties as a result of this fire, I have concerns that it (the death toll) will rise."

Winds of up to 40 miles per hour (64 km per hour) were expected to continue in Southern California through Tuesday, heightening the risk of fresh blazes ignited by scattered embers, while winds were forecast to begin diminishing again in Butte County.

Taken together, the Camp Fire, the Woolsey Fire and a handful of smaller blazes in Southern California have displaced about a quarter-million people, CalFire said. About 8,000 firefighters were battling the flames, backed by squadrons of water-dropping helicopters and airplane tankers, including crews from out of state.

"These are extreme conditions. If there's a fire in your neighborhood, don't wait for an evacuation order, leave," Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Daryl Osby told a news conference.

Many of those allowed to return in Malibu, a seaside community that is home to many Hollywood celebrities, were left without power or cellphone service, even if their homes were spared by the flames.

Malibu resident Tony Haynes described how strong winds brought the fire through his neighborhood during the weekend, with the sky growing dark, saying there was so much smoke he put on his scuba-diving tank to breathe. Haynes said his home survived.

"It all came down to luck and a whole lot of buckets of water," he told KTLA 5.

A smaller blaze in Southern California, the Hill Fire, was 75 percent contained, officials said.

California has endured two of the worst wildfire seasons in its history over the past couple of years.

Forty-six people died in a flurry of wind-driven wildfires that swept northern California's wine country in October of last year, destroying some 8,900 homes and other structures.

The worst of those blazes, dubbed the Tubbs Fire, was blamed for 22 of the deaths.