OAKLAND, Calif. _ Alameda County prosecutors have assigned criminal investigators to probe the Oakland warehouse fire as the death toll has risen to 33.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced the move Sunday as the grim search continued. As of 3 p.m., searchers had only covered about 35 percent of the burned building.
Schaaf did not provide many details about a criminal probe, which would be handled by the office of District Attorney Nancy E. O'Malley. She said she was not authorized to announce a formal criminal investigation but said D.A. investigators were at tje scene actively reviewing evidence.
"It is far too early to have suspicions about what caused this fire," the mayor said.
There has been growing scrutiny about the warehouse, which was the subject of health and safety complaints that the city was investigating at the time of the fire.
Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly called the death toll an "astronomical number" but warned that officials expect to find more victims as the search continues. Officials asked the families of the missing to preserve DNA samples of loved ones so they could be used to help identify victims.
Searchers painstakingly sifted through the rubble of the building through the night. They described it as a horrific scene of destruction, with many concertgoers unable to flee when the fire broke out.
On Sunday morning, people walked up to the caution tape barrier at the warehouse, trying to see beyond the TV cameras at the charred building. A couple held hands and stared forward. A man nursed a cup of coffee and leaned against a wall.
The smell of smoke lingered in the air. People had placed roses in a chain link fence across the street.
John Ko's cousin is among those still missing. Ko came up from Los Angeles with some of his family after hearing about the fire Saturday.
They'd been at the victims center nearby, Ko said, but they wanted to see the site of the fire itself.
"It's our first time here," he said.
The fire's cause is not known. Arson is not suspected, but Kelly said nothing had been ruled out.
The property is one of several owned by Chor N. Ng, according to her daughter, Eva Ng, 36. She said the warehouse was leased as studio space for an art collective and not used as a dwelling.
"Nobody lived there," she told the Los Angeles Times, adding, "It was an art collective."
She said she had asked her leaseholders about the issue and had been reassured that nobody lived in the building. "They confirmed multiple times. They said sometimes some people worked through the night, but that is all," she said.
The second floor had two exits, both wooden stairs, she said, adding that she believes the building also had smoke detectors. She was not familiar with comments by fire officials that the makeshift stairs consisted of packing crates.
Ng added that her mother felt terrible about the tragedy.
Kevin Longton, who lives at the Vulcan Lofts, less than a mile from the site, said the warehouse was well-known for holding rave-style dance parties. He went to one about a year ago, never saw any sprinklers and felt the place was an accident waiting to happen.
Inside, he said, were two floors with a huge open space on the first floor with lots of nooks and crannies. People had cordoned off loft-style sections on the first floor and decorated them with fabric and curtains. More than two dozen old pianos were strewn about the floor.
"There were people living there," Longton said. "I'm sure of that."
People who previously lived there recalled a building that lacked fire sprinklers and had a staircase partly made of wooden pallets. Partygoers recalled a rabbit warren of rooms crammed with belongings _ pianos, organs, antique furniture, doors and half-finished sculptures.
"It was a tinderbox," said Brooke Rollo, 30, who lives less than a mile from the scene and had gone to parties there.
