OAKLAND, Calif. _ Alameda County prosecutors have assigned criminal investigators to probe the fire at an Oakland warehouse that claimed at least 33 lives.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced the move Sunday as the grim search continued. As of 3 p.m., searchers had covered only about 35 percent of the burned building.
"The scope of this tragedy is tremendous," Schaaf said.
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 district attorney's investigators are on the scene actively reviewing evidence.
"It is far too early to have suspicions about what caused this fire," the mayor said.
Authorities also released the names of seven victims of the warehouse fire as the death toll rose to 33: Cash Askew, 22; David Cline, 35; Nick Gomez-Hall, 25; Sara Hoda, 30; Travis Hough, 35; Donna Kellogg, 32; and Brandon Chase Wittenauer, 32.
One of the victims is a 17-year-old minor whose name was not released, city officials said. The victims' families have been notified.
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 blaze.
Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly called the death toll an "astronomical number" and 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.
"When we started this investigation, if you would have told us we would have 33 victims, we wouldn't have believed you," Kelly said.
The victims were found "throughout the entire square footage" of the warehouse.
The magnitude of the loss "hit very close to home," Kelly said, adding that one of their deputies lost his son in the fire.
"Our department is hurting from that," he said.
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.
San Francisco music producer and performer Nahir Bhatt said he pulled up to the venue just minutes before the fire broke out. Bhatt, 39, said he stages events like the one at the Ghost Ship and was chatting outside the entrance with two of the performers there Friday night.
He said one of the performers went inside, the other stayed outside to talk. Then Bhatt heard shouts about a fire.
"The one who went inside is lost now," Bhatt said.
Bhatt said he saw about 30 people escape from the building.
"There was lots of panic. Lots of screaming," Bhatt said. "When the building filled with black smoke, which was almost a minute or two of it starting it seemed, there was no going into the building. It was so shocking when people stopped coming out. People just weren't coming out anymore."
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 rising death toll makes the blaze one of the worst in recent California history.
The fire's cause is not known. Arson is not suspected, but Kelly said nothing had been ruled out.
City records cited allegations of at least three code violations at the building this year. In one complaint, city inspectors said there was a complaint of an illegal building on the property as well as piles of trash.
"This property is a storage (facility), but the owner turned it into a trash recycling center. The yard became a trash collection site, and the main building was (remodeled) for residential," according to city records.
City building and safety officials said Saturday afternoon that there was an open investigation into the warehouse and that inspectors had found evidence of blight. The building was permitted for use as a warehouse, not for housing.
They said that a party or concert at the property would have required a permit, which had not been granted. They also said there was no evidence that the building had fire sprinklers or alarms.
