California wildfire deadliest in US history, 42 killed: Sheriff

PARADISE, Calif. - Remains have been recovered from at least 42 people killed by a devastating wildfire that largely incinerated the town of Paradise in northern California, making it the deadliest in US history, the Butte County sheriff said on Monday.

The latest death toll was announced after authorities located the remains of 13 additional victims from the Camp Fire, which also ranks as the most destructive on record in California, having leveled more than 7,100 homes and other buildings since it erupted on Thursday, officials said.

Emergency teams searched on Monday for more than 200 people listed as missing in the deadliest northern California wildfire on record, and officials voiced concerns the casualty toll will climb higher as a resurgence of fierce winds fanned the flames.

The deadly Camp Fire also ranked as California's most destructive ever in terms of property losses, having incinerated more than 6,700 homes and other buildings in the Sierra foothills of Butte County, about 175 miles (280 km) north of San Francisco.

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.

Most of the devastation and loss of life was 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 42 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.

Both 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.