Thousands of firefighters spent a fifth day Monday digging battle lines to contain California's worst ever wildfire as the wind-whipped flames cleaved a merciless path through the state's northern hills, leaving death and devastation in their wake.

The Camp Fire -- in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains north of Sacramento -- has killed 29 people, matching the state's deadliest ever brush blaze 85 years ago. More than 200 people are still unaccounted for, according to officials.

It is the largest of several infernos that have sent a quarter of a million people fleeing their homes across the tinder-dry state, with winds of up to 60 miles (100 kilometers) per hour fanning the fast-moving flames.

As well as the historic loss of life, the blaze is also more destructive than any other on record, having razed 6,500 homes in the town of Paradise, effectively wiping it off the map.

Some 4,500 firefighters from as far as Washington and Texas have been working to halt the advance of the inferno as "mass casualty" search teams backed by anthropologists and a DNA lab pick through the charred ruins to identify remains -- sometimes reduced to no more than shards of bone.

At least 31 people have died in fire zones in north and south California, where acrid smoke has blanketed the sky for miles, the sun barely visible.

On the ground, cars caught in the flames have been reduced to scorched metal skeletons, while piles of debris smolder where houses once stood, an occasional brick wall or chimney remaining.

The Camp Fire has matched the 1933 Griffith Park disaster in Los Angeles -- until now the single deadliest wildfire on record -- according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

Police say 228 people are unaccounted for in the Paradise area, although many may be among the 1,400 in emergency shelters outside of the danger zone.

Glenn Simmons, 64, told AFP in the nearby town of Chico that he had been sleeping in his car since Thursday, unable to find a space in a shelter.

"I was planning on maybe moving out of state, or into southern California... Everything is burned up. I have my clothes and I have a backpack, and that's pretty much it," he said.

The Camp Fire has reduced around 17 square miles (45 square kilometers) of Butte County's forested hills mostly to charred wasteland -- an area which hasn't seen rainfall of more then half an inch (one centimeter) in more than 30 weeks.

Three firefighters have been injured in the effort to quell its advance.

At the southern end of the state, another three firefighters have been injured battling the Woolsey Fire, which has devoured mansions and mobile homes alike in the coastal celebrity resort of Malibu.

The blaze is similar in size to the Camp Fire but has been much less destructive, and the body count has been limited to two victims found in a vehicle on a private driveway.

- 'The new abnormal' -

While some Malibu-area residents were allowed to return home late Sunday, the city of Calabasas, just northeast of coastal Malibu, came under evacuation orders.

"This is not the new normal, this is the new abnormal. And this new abnormal will continue, certainly in the next 10 to 15 to 20 years," California Governor Jerry Brown said Sunday in a stark warning over the likely damaging effects of climate change.

"Unfortunately, the best science is telling us that the dryness, warmth, drought, all those things, they're going to intensify."

Over the weekend, the Woolsey Fire engulfed parts of Thousand Oaks, where the community is still shell-shocked after a Marine Corps veteran shot dead 12 people in a country music bar on Wednesday.

The blaze has consumed around 85,500 acres (34,600 hectares), destroyed at least 177 buildings and was only 15 percent contained, Cal Fire said.

Singer Miley Cyrus's home was one of the buildings destroyed in southern California.

"Completely devestated (sic) by the fires affecting my community. I am one of the lucky ones. My animals and LOVE OF MY LIFE made it out safely & that's all that matters right now," she tweeted.

"My house no longer stands but the memories shared with family & friends stand strong."

Many of the affected area's residents own horses, and for the past days Twitter has been flooded with messages from people seeking and offering help.

Actor James Woods, a rare political conservative in liberal Hollywood, has made new friends by using his Twitter account to help find missing people and getting help for pets, including horses.

The Ventura County Humane Society said it was "deeply humbled" by a $100,000 donation from actress Sandra Bullock and her family to rescue and care for animals evacuated from the fires.

Deadliest wildfires in the United States since the 1990s
Washington (AFP) Nov 12, 2018 - Wildfires raging in California are among the deadliest recorded in the United States, with at least 31 people killed in the state as 250,000 flee their homes.

The largest and most destructive of the blazes is the "Camp Fire" in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which started on November 9 and has claimed 29 lives.

This death toll matches the highest previously recorded for a single wildfire in the United States, when 29 people died fighting a blaze at Griffith Park in Los Angeles County in 1933.

The United States is regularly struck by wildfires in its dry late summer months. Here is a look back at some of the most deadly since the 1990s:

- 2018: 10 die in two blazes -

A fire that starts late July near the city of Redding in northern California rages for six weeks and claims the lives of eight people, three of them firefighters.

Called the "Carr Fire," it razes more than 1,000 homes, forcing the evacuation of 40,000 people.

The "Mendocino Complex" that starts days later southwest of the city is on August 7 declared to be the largest fire in California's recorded history. It eventually burns through nearly 460,000 acres (186,000 hectares), according to local authorities, and claims two lives.

- 2017: 42 dead in California -

California is ravaged by around 20 wildfires from early October that go on to claim 42 lives over the month, most of them in wine-producing Sonoma County, just north of San Francisco, where 22 die.

As many as 11,000 firefighters -- some from as far away as Australia -- are involved in battling the blazes which burn through more than 245,000 acres, force the evacuation of 100,000 people and destroy about 10,000 buildings.

- 2016: 13 killed in tourist area -

A fire breaks out late November in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a popular tourist area straddling the border of southeastern US states Tennessee and North Carolina, and rapidly spreads, pushed by strong winds and tornadoes.

Thirteen people are killed, 12 directly related to the blaze and one of a heart attack while fleeing, authorities say.

- 2013: 19 firefighters -

The rapidly spreading Yarnell Hill fire, which starts in the southwestern state of Arizona late June, claims the lives of 19 firefighters in a single afternoon on June 30 when it explodes into a firestorm.

It is the biggest loss of life among firefighters since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

- 2003: 22 people die -

Over 10 days in October fires tear through parched southern California, destroying towns and killing at least 22 people, most around San Diego and San Bernardino and two across the border in Mexico.

An army of 14,500 firefighters is called in to battle the 17 wildfires that ravage 750,000 acres of land, obliterating around 2,500 houses.

- 2000: 13 killed as six states burn -

Over July and August in 2000, 13 people die as dozens of fires burn in six states -- California, Idaho, Florida, Nevada, Montana and Wyoming.

Idaho and Montana are the hardest hit with 1.2 million acres ablaze. Among the dead are two prisoners in a volunteer firefighting squad in Utah.

- 1994: 20 firemen -

Wildfires that burn in the western United States over four weeks from early July 1994 claim the lives of 20 firefighters and ravage hundreds of thousands of acres of land in several states, including California, Montana and Utah.

The heaviest toll is recorded on July 6, when 14 firefighters are killed after being trapped by flames at Glenwood Springs in Colorado.

- 1991: 25 die, again in California -

Over a couple of days in October 1991, 25 people are killed in a wildfire that starts in the hills of California, above the town of Oakland, going on to destroy close to 3,000 buildings.

Related Links
Forest and Wild Fires - News, Science and Technology

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Ten ways climate change can make wildfires worse
Paris (AFP) Nov 11, 2018
Deadly wildfires such as those raging in northern and southern California have become more common across the state and elsewhere in the world in recent years. AFP talked to scientists about the ways in which climate change can make them worse. Other factors have also fuelled an increase in the frequency and intensity of major fires, including human encroachment on wooded areas, and questionable forest management. "The patient was already sick," in the words of David Bowman, a professor of environmen ... read more