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Death Toll Rises To 66, With More Than 600 Missing in CA Wildfires

As firefighters start gaining ground on the fires in California, new information reveals the true devastation at play. Officials have confirmed that the remains of seven more victims of NoCal’s Camp Fire have been found. That brings the overall total of people killed to 66.

But now, police have also updated the list of missing – or “unaccounted for” people – while it was 130 on Wednesday, it’s now 631. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the increase is because they are now including anyone who called 9-1-1 when the fire first arrived. They are hoping most of those people are simply displaced and will contact them so they can take their name off the list.

Honea said they have tentatively identified 53 of the victims, but are waiting for DNA confirmation.

  • As for the fires themselves, the Camp Fire is still burning. It is engulfing about 141-thousand acres and is 40% contained. Some evacuation orders and warnings have been lifted so people can return and survey the damage. But officials warn that if an area is under a warning, people must be ready to go immediately if the fire shifts.
  • The flames of the Woolsey Fire are also being fanned – though Cal Fire reports it’s now at 62% containment – with more than 98-thousand acres scorched. While more of the fire is getting put down, officials don’t want to allow residents back until it’s safe – as valuable infrastructure has been destroyed.
  • ONE MORE THING! Northern California's Camp Fire is among the deadliest in American history. Officials have confirmed that the new death total makes this blaze the deadliest wildfire in 100 years. The Cloquet Fire in 1918 in Minnesota killed an estimated 450 people. The deadliest fire ever? The 1871 Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin that claimed at least 12-hundred lives. The Great Fire in 1910 in parts of Idaho and Montana burned more than three-million acres and killed 87 people, most of them firefighters. Still, the Camp Fire is now the deadliest wildfire in California history, putting it ahead of the 1933 Griffith Park Fire that killed 29. The most recent deadly wildfire was in 2013 when 19 firefighters died fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona.

Source: ABC News


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