MCSO Search and Rescue helps find remains from North Bay Fire

UPDATE 10/16/2017 5:05 p.m.:

Members of the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office’s Search and Rescue Team returned from the North Bay over the weekend. The 32 deputies and volunteers spent as much as three days scouring the rubble, looking for victims of the Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa.

Cmdr. Joe Moses said he had never seen devastation like that before, with neighborhoods completely obliterated.

“It was pretty horrific, looking at entire neighborhoods that are just ashes,” Moses said. “It was pretty amazing. You’re looking at a two-story home that is reduced to a couple of inches of ash.”

He said the team knew they had a tough task, searching for people believed to have been killed in the fire. The team focused on the Mark West Springs and Fountaingrove areas and the Journey’s End Mobile Home Park.

Search and rescue teams would make sure an area was safe before letting a cadaver dog smell for remains. If there was a hit, crews would then sift for debris.

“We are looking almost exclusively for bone fragments,” Moses said. “The fire burned so hot through those areas that basically the bodies were cremated, so, we are really just looking for pieces.”

Working shoulder to shoulder with teams from Marin, Sonoma and Alameda Counties, the remains of eight people were found. Three were located in the mobile home park.

“A lot of the people that we were looking for are elderly or are bedridden and didn’t have an opportunity to get out of the house and so the most logical place would be in the bedroom,” Moses said.

The team could still go back with more than 100 people still unaccounted for in Napa and Sonoma Counties.

The work is grueling, but there’s one thing that keeps them going.

“What we work off of is the feeling that we are helping the people that are still here and are alive,” Moses said. “So we want to bring some closure to those families and that’s what keeps us going. It is a difficult job but somebody has to do it, and it’s our way of contributing to the cause and assisting those in the community that need that closure.”

There have been some good stories of people thought to be dead, but later found in shelters or other safe areas.

ORIGINAL POST:

The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue Team is back home Monday after grueling recovery efforts in Sonoma County.

The 32 deputies and volunteers looked for human remains in Santa Rosa. Deputies said they concentrated on the Journey’s End mobile home park, Mark West Springs and Fountaingrove areas. Between the team and resources from Marin, Sonoma and Alameda counties, the remains of eight people were found in the rubble.

“It was pretty horrific, looking at entire neighborhoods that are just ashes. It was pretty amazing. You’re looking at a two-story home that is reduced to a couple of inches of ash,” said Commander Joe Moses with the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office.

The team may go back up to the North Bay in a few weeks for more recovery efforts. They’ve also made themselves available to help out in Napa and Mendocino counties, where there are reports of people missing also.

KION’s Mariana Hicks has the full story at 6 p.m.