Death toll in Camp Fire rises to 23 as coroner’s teams search for remains

PARADISE, Butte County — Fourteen more bodies were recovered Saturday by coroner’s search crews, bringing the total number of people killed in the Camp Fire to 23, officials said at an evening news conference.

The Camp Fire in Butte County grew to 105,000 acres, or 164 square miles, by Saturday evening and fire officials warned that weather conditions were changing for the worse, with high winds through Monday morning pushing the blaze and firefighting even more difficult.

The blaze, which ignited Thursday, still threatens 15,000 structures. The fire has destroyed 6,453 single-family homes and 260 commercial buildings, making it the most destructive in California history. The new death toll also makes the Camp Fire the third-deadliest in state history. The 1933 Griffith Park Fire in Los Angeles claimed 29 lives, while 25 died in the 1991 Oakland hills firestorm.

County officials said they have four coroner’s search and recovery teams working to find remains and are adding an additional team on Sunday. More than 100 people remained missing Saturday night.

Officials are also bringing in a DNA lab truck so that people with missing relatives can provide DNA samples to help identify recovered remains. Anthropologists are helping identify bones and bone fragments sifted from scorched rubble.

The blaze grew by about 5,000 acres Saturday, mostly around the fire’s heel, near Highway 32 and along the Feather River Canyon. Containment levels held steady at 20 percent for most of the day, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. An estimated 52,000 people have been forced from their homes.

Deteriorating weather conditions could make it harder to contain the blaze in coming days. Cal Fire and the National Weather Service were particularly wary of Saturday’s overnight forecast, which called for blustery winds from the northeast of up to 50 miles per hour in some regions. The prospect of gusting winds pushing the fire across Butte County’s parched terrain prompted officials to issue a red-flag warning that will remain in effect until 7 a.m. Monday.

Conditions are ripe to “produce extreme fire behavior, including dangerous rates of spread,” Cal Fire said in an incident report Saturday night. Officials warned that the conditions could mirror those that pushed the blaze through the town of Paradise Thursday, ravaging the community.

Fire officials said another flank of the blaze continues to burn to the southwest, toward Big Bend and Berry Creek.

The cause of the fire remains unknown.

“The fire is currently under investigation,” said Janet Upton, a Cal Fire spokeswoman. “Investigators are looking into potential causes, including the possibility the fire was sparked by electrical equipment.”

On Friday, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. informed state regulators that a high-voltage power line near the area where the fire started experienced a problem just before the first flames appeared. PG&E also said Friday that it would not preemptively cut power in the area as a safety precaution, though the utility has turned off electricty in “some locations” at the request of of first responders, PG&E spokeswoman Angela Lombardi said.

On Saturday morning, new evacuation warnings were issued for the communities of Berry Creek, Brush Creek, Mountain House and Bloomer Hill.

Downtown Paradise was an eerie gray heap of ash and debris, although the fickle nature of the firestorm left a Walgreen’s and a Starbucks largely intact while, nearby, a Burger King and Jack-in-the-Box were leveled and gone.

The Attic Treasures antique store remained standing, with its treasures still on display through gritty windows. But businesses alongside were destroyed.

Downed power lines lay in tangles on the street while PG&E crews worked to clear them.

On Lisa Lane, a half-mile northeast of downtown, a 63-year-old man and his roommate stayed put and battled the blaze for 14 hours because his 90-year-old mother refused to leave.

Brad Weldon said he and Mic McCrary stayed behind because Weldon’s mother, Norma, who is blind and immobile, told him, “F— you, I’m not leaving.”

Using garden hoses and five-gallon buckets, Weldon said he kept his home intact but could not save his his neighbors’ homes, which burned.

“I felt like I was fighting an elephant with a piece of spaghetti,” Weldon said.

“I know many of you are worried whether you have a home,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told a weary, quiet crowd that packed a Chico State University auditorium Saturday night for an update on the fire. There were sighs and a few tears when Honea told them the death toll had risen to 23.

One man stood to ask whether anyone had seen his mother and gave her name.

“I’m hoping she is listening or is here,” he said. A voice from the crowd replied, “I saw her today at Walmart.”

Five emergency shelters, including the Butte County Fairgrounds in Gridley and the Glenn County Fairgrounds in Orland, were full and accepting no additional evacuees. Space remained at the Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds in Yuba City and at the Chester (Plumas County) Memorial Hall in Chester.

Veterans Affairs clinics in Chico and Yuba City were closed until Tuesday for the Veterans Day holiday weekend, but the VA mobile centers are available in the fire zone to help veterans, the VA said.

About 4,000 firefighters are battling the blaze, using 512 fire engines, 79 bulldozers and 23 helicopters.

President Trump, in a tweet Saturday, said with no supporting evidence that the cause of the fire was “gross mismanagement of the forests” and threatened to withhold federal funds from the state. A spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown called the president’s statements “inane, uninformed tweets.”

Steve Rubenstein, Melody Gutierrez and Dominic Fracassa are a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com, mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @melodygutierrez @dominicfracassa