Newfoundland woman searching for family missing in Northern California

Searchers found the charred remains of their house and the burned-out shells of their vehicles — but no bodies, she said.

“We just don’t know what happened,” she said in an interview from her home in Lewisporte in central Newfoundland, adding that calls to local shelters and hospitals have also yielded no information about the fate of the couple in their late 60s.

“The hope is because there were no bodies on the scene, someone picked them up and helped them. But so far there is no word. We have no clue.”

The family has tried to remain hopeful that the couple managed to evacuate before the inferno swept through the town, Janes said.

But after several days with no information on their whereabouts, she said the family is starting to prepare for the worst.

“In the beginning there was hope,” Janes said through tears. “We’re still praying and we’re still hoping but honestly at this point I think we’re preparing.”

Janes said her mother, a Canada-U.S. dual citizen who lives on the Avalon Peninsula, is praying for her brother.

“I think God is giving her peace,” she said.

Janes said she’s used social media to try to locate her aunt and uncle, noting that, “You could be miles and miles away but you can still help.”

Meanwhile, authorities in California have moved to set up a rapid DNA-analysis system and bring in cadaver dogs, mobile morgues and more search teams to the Paradise area.

“I want to recover as many remains as we possibly can, as soon as we can,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said Monday night as he announced the discovery of 13 more dead.

“I know the toll it takes on loved ones.”

More than a dozen coroner search-and-recovery teams looked for bodies across the apocalyptic landscape that was once Paradise, while anxious relatives visited shelters and called police and hospitals in hopes of finding loved ones.

The record-breaking Camp Fire is one of three wildfires wreaking havoc and devastation across California.

The Woolsey Fire in Southern California has killed two people and destroyed many homes — including those of celebrities in the Malibu area such as Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young.

Ontario-native Marlee Hewitt, in her third year at Pepperdine University in Malibu, said students were grappling with the death of a student after a mass shooting last week when the wildfire threatened campus.

In an interview from her home in Windsor, she said students were ordered on Friday to shelter-in-place in the school’s cafeteria, gymnasium and library.

But Hewitt said after seeing plumes of smoke in the nearby mountains she quickly decided with some friends to evacuate the area.

“We had to drive toward the smoke and fire to get away,” she said. “It was terrifying but we were safe.”

With many of her peers still on campus, Hewitt said she watched the news closely and received updates from friends throughout the day.

“My friend sent me a picture late that night and you could see the orange glow of the fire starting to come over the hillside,” she said.

Hewitt said fire fighters worked tirelessly to fend off the flames. While the vegetation on the outskirts of the campus was charred, none of the university’s buildings were burned.

The sports medicine student has returned home to southern Ontario until after American Thanksgiving. She said the campus is closed until then, though students are taking part in classes remotely.

“It’s been very emotionally taxing,” she said of the last week. “It’s all so sad.”

— By Brett Bundale in Halifax

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Newfoundland woman searching for family missing in Northern California

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