Wildfire death toll grows

National News

November 12, 2018 - 11:25 AM

The town of Paradise, Calif., is mostly a ghost town after an explosive fire burned through Butte County Saturday. LOS ANGELES TIMES/CAROLYN COLE/TNS

PARADISE, Calif. (AP) — As wildfires raged at both ends of California, officials released another grim statistic: Six more dead in a swath of Northern California wiped out by fire, raising the death toll there to 29. It matched California’s record for deaths in a single fire and brought the statewide total to 31 as authorities stepped up searches for bodies and missing people.

Another 228 remain unaccounted for. Two people were killed in a wildfire in Southern California.

Ten search teams were working in Paradise — a town of 27,000 that was largely incinerated last week — and in surrounding communities in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Authorities called in a DNA lab and teams of anthropologists to help identify victims.

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