(Image source from: The New York Times)
The death toll from a deadly California wildfire rose to 29 on Sunday as recovery teams found bodies in the relentless search through the wreckage.
The "Camp Fire" in the northern foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains is the largest and most devastating of several infernos that have sent 250,000 people fleeing their abodes across the tinder-dry state, destroying 6,400 homes in the town of Paradise and effectively wiping it off the map.
"Today, an additional six human remains were recovered, which brings our current total to 29," Sheriff Kory Honea told a news conference at the extremity of the fourth day in an attempt to contain the blaze, adding that all were found in Paradise.
Los Angeles County Fire chief Daryl Osby told reporters of his gratitude to firefighters who have done all they could do save tens of thousands of people's lives and thousands of people's homes.
The rescuers on Saturday spent hours collecting bodies around Paradise and placing them in a black hearse. Body parts were transported by vessel, while unimpaired remains were carried in body bags.
At the Holly Hills Mobile Estate the mobile homes had been ablated to smoldering piles of debris.
Evacuation orders have been issued across California to more than a quarter of a million people, with authorities urging residents not to ignore warnings to evacuate.
"This is not the new normal, this is the new abnormal. And this new abnormal will continue, certainly in the next 10 to 15 to 20 years," California Governor Jerry Brown told a news conference on Sunday. "Unfortunately, the best science is telling us that the dryness, warmth, drought, all those things, they’re going to intensify," he said.
President Donald Trump drew fierce criticism for an unsympathetic reaction to the devastation. "There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor," Trump tweeted, threatening to withdraw federal support.
Brian Rice, the head of the California Professional Firefighters, slammed the tweet as "ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines."
-Sowmya Sangam
