SAN FRANCISCO — Firefighters are battling two deadly California wildfires that have claimed at least 31 lives, left more than 200 people missing and a quarter million under evacuation, while unhealthy smoke levels have prompted warnings to stay indoors.
The Camp Fire in Butte County, about 100 miles north of Sacramento, grew slightly to a total of 109,000 acres on Sunday, after destroying an estimated 6,500 homes and 260 businesses, mostly in the city of Paradise. Authorities raised the death toll Sunday night to 29. Already ranked as the most destructive wildfire in California history, the Camp Fire has equalled the deadliest on record with a 1933 inferno. Officials of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said teams have been deployed to search for the missing, some of whom they said could be alive but trapped in rubble.
Read: Firefighters slam Trump’s comments blaming California for wildfires as ‘reckless and insulting’
A quarter million people remained evacuated on Sunday amid fears that the infernos that broke out on Thursday could flare up again, as dense smoke made air unhealthy for millions from San Francisco to San Diego.
In Southern California, the Woolsey Fire expanded to 83,275 acres Sunday morning, after leaving an estimated 177 homes and other structures destroyed in Ventura and Los Angeles counties and at least two known fatalities. More than 200,000 people remained evacuated from their homes on Sunday, including in Thousand Oaks where a gunman fatally shot 12 people in the Borderline Bar and Grill before apparently taking his own life.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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