PARADISE, Calif. _ The death toll from the Paradise fire in Northern California's Butte County rose to 29, with six new bodies recovered Sunday, officials said.
The number of fatalities is expected to increase further as officials make their way through thousands of burned homes.
There are currently more than 200 people unaccounted for, Butte County sheriff's officials said. Authorities are looking for them. Some of those reported missing were located at shelters, officials said.
The Camp fire is the most destructive in California history, destroying 6,453 homes and 260 commercial buildings since it began Thursday.
Residents who were able to outrun the fire said they still cannot fathom how much of their town was lost or imagine how many of their neighbors might be gone.
"We not only lost our home," said resident Sue Brown, "we lost a whole community. It's gone. Paradise is gone."
The wind-swept fire exploded out of the mountains northeast of Paradise around dawn Thursday and started pelting the town's rooftops with embers just before the full-scale firestorm came raging through the streets.
Residents who scrambled to escape down the main highway were terrified by towering flames licking at their vehicles from both sides.
Traumatized Paradise survivors were among 52,000 people chased out of their homes by the Camp fire. Many spent Saturday at evacuation centers in nearby Chico and Oroville.
