OAKLAND, Calif. — Firefighters picking through the ruins of a warehouse “literally bucket by bucket” found 15 more bodies overnight, bringing the death toll to 24 from a fire that ripped through a makeshift nightclub on Friday. It will take days to search the rest of the building, officials said Sunday at a news conference.
“We have located 24 deceased victims of this fire,” Sgt. Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said. “We anticipate that the number of victims will rise.”
In one of the deadliest structure fires in the United States in the last decade, partygoers in the two-story converted warehouse were asphyxiated on Friday night by thick black fumes, which poured from the building’s windows for several hours. Survivors stood across the street in a Wendy’s parking lot, watching firefighters try to put out the blaze and rescue those inside.
Melinda Drayton, battalion chief for the Oakland Fire Department, said rescue workers had spent the night sifting through the charred warehouse, methodically removing debris to a lot across the street where it was hauled away be dump trucks.
“It was quiet, it was heartbreaking,” Chief Drayton said of the search, in which firefighters had been able to access only about 20 percent of the warehouse.
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