More than 150 still missing in Camp Fire [Updated]

Update: The Camp Fire list of missing persons, which has fluctuate over the last few days, has risen to 196 as of Thursday.

The death toll has also jumped to 88.

The search is still on for missing Butte County residents not yet identified in the wake of the Camp Fire, California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire of all time.

The Butte County Sheriff’s Office’s latest missing person’s report lists 158 names of still unaccounted for individuals.

At the height of the crisis, the county was trying to locate as many as 1,300 missing persons.

The overwhelming majority of those people eventually turned up safe, but the most recent casualty report records 85 deaths related to the fire, nearly three times as many as the previous deadliest wildfire in California history (all the way back in 1933).

Still-missing persons range in age from 30 to 100 years old. As with previous lists, most of the missing are from Paradise, although a significant number of residents from nearby Magalia are also listed, as are names from Chico, Big Bend, Berry Creek, and Durham.

Butte County officials say they have received “an enormous amount of emails” and as such prefer that anyone with information about the missing call them instead at one of three numbers established for the missing person’s task force: 530-538-6570, 530-538-7544, and 530-538-7671.

Those with missing family members can submit a DNA sample to Butte County sheriffs to help in the search, provided you are an “immediate relative”: parent, sibling, half sibling, or child.

“Your DNA sample can be collected at a local police station with just a simple cheek swab that will be sent to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office for processing,” according to the DNA testing site, which also includes consent forms governing the use of genetic materials in search and recovery.

In a video message released Sunday, Paradise’s acting Public Information Officer Matt Gates said that there is still no estimate on when evacuation orders may be lifted.

Though many Butte County residents have returned home, Paradise—the site of the worst of the fire’s depredations—remains largely inaccessible.

• Camp Fire Incident Report [Cal Fire]
• Missing Persons List [Butte County]
• Camp Fire DNA [Butte County]
• Butte County Missing Persons Task Force
• Town of Paradise Update [YouTube]