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After a weeklong search for the victims of the Camp Fire, California Task Force 3 has been demobilized and returned to the Bay Area on Sunday, the Menlo Park Fire Protection District reported.
Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said 45 members of the task force, along with their two search dogs, searched almost 2,000 structures in Magalia, about 5 miles north of the town of Paradise.
“The team was honored to be there, but it’s hard to feel completely finished with so many people still missing,” Schapelhouman said in a news release. “Many feel like they’re leaving a little piece of themselves behind.”
The task force traveled from Butte County to the Teams Special Operations warehouse in East Palo Alto. Another group of firefighters dispatched to Butte County from San Francisco also returned home this week, according to the firefighters’ union.
The task force is one of 28 such teams in the United States, including eight in California. Along with personnel from the Menlo Park and Woodside fire districts, the team includes first responders from the Mountain View, Palo Alto and Santa Clara County fire departments, and professionals from Facebook, Genentech and Stanford Research International, Schapelhouman said.
The Camp Fire in Northern California’s Butte County was 100 percent contained on Sunday morning at 153,336 acres, Cal Fire reported.
Welcome HOME! Each story about this catastrophe brings tears to my eyes. Thank you for having the courage to deal with it first hand. Thank you very much