“As advanced as we are, we are literally down to buckets and shovels,” Sergeant Kelly said.

Around 15 search-and-rescue teams met in the parking lot of the local bowling alley Tuesday morning to begin their grim task, fanning out across the region, said Sgt. Steve Collins of the Butte County Sheriff’s Department.

The search teams include many volunteers and each team was assigned an anthropologist with the expertise to distinguish human from animal remains.

Teams were also accompanied by Cal Fire firefighters who were called on to help with specific tasks: removing heavy debris, entering particularly dangerous areas, or using thermal imaging technology to determine if a home was still too hot to enter.

Among the specialists called on to assist in the identification of victims is Jim Wood, an expert in forensic odontology, the use of dental records to match teeth found in the ashes.

Mr. Wood, who is also a representative in the California State Assembly, says dental records were crucial in identifying the victims of the wine country fires last year. Officials are checking dental clinics in Paradise, he said, to see how many records survived the fires.

“The trick is getting the records,” he said.

“In some of the identifications last year I only had two or three teeth,” Mr. Wood said. “They are extremely fragile and that becomes another part of the challenge.”

Mr. Wood said hip replacements and other implanted medical devices resilient to fire were also helpful in identifying victims in last year’s fires.