The number of people missing in California’s most deadly wildfire on record has leapt to 631, with the death toll standing at 63.
The revised official list of whose whereabouts and fate remain unknown is now more than double the 297 recorded earlier on the same day.
Explaining the staggering new figure, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said: “the chaos we were dealing with was extraordinary.”
He said it comes after investigators went back to check emergency calls made when the now-record breaking Camp Fire blaze first broke out.
California wildfires
Officials in part attributed the high number of deaths to huge wind speeds that drove flames through the town of Paradise, home to 27,000 residents.
Rescue workers were still combing through the ruins of the town, in the north of the state, a week after it burned to the ground.
The Camp Fire had spread across 140,000 acres but was now 40 per cent contained, firefighters said on Thursday.
The White House said Donald Trump will visit the state on Saturday to meet those affected by the disaster.
Hundreds of thousands of evacuation orders were issued, with President Trump approving a major disaster declaration across the state.
The Camp Fire death toll has exceeded that of the Griffith Park Fire in 1933, which killed 29 people.
