The search for remains of victims in the charred ruins of the northern California town of Paradise is set to intensify today.
Firefighters stepped up their nearly week-long efforts to contain the state's deadliest-ever wildfire, which has killed at least 50 people.
A National Guard contingent of 100 military police trained to seek and identify human remains will reinforce coroner-led recovery teams, cadaver dogs and forensic anthropologists in position.
A further 228 people have been listed as missing, but last night local county sheriff Kory Honea said those numbers were highly fluid as some individuals may simply have fallen out of touch during chaotic evacuations.
The grim search is concentrated in the little that is left of Paradise, a Sierra foothills town in Butte County, California, about 280km north of San Francisco.
It was overrun by flames and largely incinerated last Thursday.
The killer "Camp Fire," fed by drought-desiccated scrub and fanned by strong winds, has capped a catastrophic California wildfire season that experts largely attribute to prolonged dry spells that are symptomatic of global climate change.
Wind-driven flames roared through Paradise so swiftly that residents were forced to flee for their lives with little or no warning.
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The Butte County disaster coincided with a flurry of blazes in Southern California, most notably the "Woolsey Fire".
That has killed two people, destroyed more than 400 structures and at its height displaced about 200,000 people in the mountains and foothills west of Los Angeles.
US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and California Governor Jerry Brown are scheduled to visit both sites today.
US President Donald Trump has declared them both disaster areas, making federal emergency assistance more readily available.
The fatality count of 48 from the Camp Fire far exceeds the previous record for the greatest loss of life from a single wildfire in California history - 29 people killed by the Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles in 1933.
