Firefighters dig battle lines: Body count mounts in California

Thousands of firefighters entered a fifth day on Monday digging battle lines to contain California’s worst ever wildfire as the wind-whipped flames cleaved a merciless path through the state’s northern hills, leaving death and devastation in their wake.

The "Camp Fire" -- in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains north of Sacramento -- has killed 29 people, matching the state’s deadliest ever brush blaze 85 years ago. More than 200 people are still unaccounted for, say officials.

It is the largest of several infernos that have sent a quarter of a million people fleeing their homes across the tinder-dry state, with winds of up to 60 miles (100 kilometers) per hour fanning the fast-moving flames.

As well as the historic loss of life, the blaze is also more destructive than any other on record, having razed 6,500 homes in the town of Paradise, effectively wiping it off the map. Some 4,500 firefighters from as far as Washington and Texas have been working to halt the advance of the inferno as "mass casualty" search teams backed by anthropologists and a DNA lab pick through the charred ruins to identify remains -- sometimes reduced to no more than shards of bone.

At least 31 people have died in fire zones in north and south California, where acrid smoke has blanketed the sky for miles, the sun barely visible. On the ground, cars caught in the flames have been reduced to scorched metal skeletons, while piles of debris smolder where houses once stood, an occasional brick wall or chimney remaining.

The Camp Fire has matched the 1933 Griffith Park disaster in Los Angeles -- until now the single deadliest wildfire on record -- according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

Police say 228 people are unaccounted for in the Paradise area alone, although many may be in emergency shelters. Several fire-affected areas have been left with no cell phone service. At the latest count the flames had reduced 17 square miles (45 square kilometers) of Butte County’s forested hills mostly to charred wasteland -- although just three firefighters have been injured in the effort to quell its advance.

At the southern end of the state, the "Woolsey Fire" has destroyed mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity resort of Malibu, where the body count has been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway.

The National Weather Service has issued a "red flag" alert warning of "extremely critical" weather conducive to the spread of fire through Tuesday, with especially high winds expected in mountainous areas.