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“It is my very, very sad duty to provide you with information on the number of human remains that we have located today.”

With those words, the Butte County sheriff, Kory L. Honea, announced late Monday that the death toll in the fire that incinerated the wooded community of Paradise in the northern Sierra had risen to 42.

That made it the deadliest wildfire in California history. And with more than 7,000 structures destroyed, most of them homes, the Camp Fire is by far the most destructive fire in the state’s history as well.

Emergency personnel were overwhelmed when the fast-moving flames raged into Paradise last week. Now they are overwhelmed in their effort to find the dead and identify them.