As the AP reported on the chaos and confusion surrounding the ever-changing list of missing people in the wake of California wildfire that killed at least 85 people, our reporters set out to try to track down more of those people and to show that they were findable, even though they continued to appear on the list of missing, and to show that hundreds were likely not really missing at all.
Dixie Singh, No. 158 on the list, was surprised to get a call from the AP, saying she was “very much alive,” and all her friends and family knew it. San Francisco reporter Jocelyn Gecker tracked her down through a public records search by AP News and Information Center researcher Jennifer Farrar.
Meanwhile, Sacramento correspondent Kathleen Ronayne, who has covered the aftermath of the fire, and Washington, D.C., reporter Juliet Linderman, who was in town for the week assisting on fire coverage, tracked down other stories of people who were findable – just not by the sheriff’s department. An 82-year-old woman, whose relative had intensively searched for her for three weeks, had marked herself “safe” at a Red Cross shelter the day the fire broke out on Nov. 8. But that information apparently never reached the Butte County sheriff, who had previously told AP’s Sudhin Thanawala that his department was regularly checking in with Red Cross officials and cross-checking its list of missing and safe.
Bill Engfelt poses in Solana Beach, Calif., Nov. 27, 2018 holding the flyer he made while searching for information on his sister, Mirella Harrison, after the Camp Fire destroyed her hometown of Paradise, Calif. Harrison's first name had been misspelled on a list of survivors, and after a lengthy search Engfelt found her safe. He's happy to have found his sister, but frustrated by the process to locate her.
AP Photo / Gregory Bull
Dixie Singh left, is shown in Paradise, Calif., with Allan Bates in an undated photo. Singh was among the names on the official list of those “missing” after Northern California’s catastrophic Camp Fire virtually destroyed the town. The Associated Press found Singh by calling the number of her friend Bates, who was puzzled when he answered his phone. “Huh? You're looking for Dixie? You want to talk to her? She's right next to me,” he said.
Thomasine Rose via AP
A recovery dog searches for human remains in Paradise, Calif. , Nov. 16, 2018. Weeks after the Camp Fire virtually leveled the town, confusion remained as officials tried to determine who was really missing among those still listed as unaccounted for. Some who escaped the inferno were surprised to find themselves listed as missing.
AP Photo / John Locher
A team of searchers look for human remains, Nov. 13, 2018, at a trailer park burned out by the Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. Weeks after the fire, confusion remained as officials tried to determine who was really missing among those still listed as unaccounted for.
AP Photo / John Locher
Gecker’s story laid out how easy it was to find some of the people and highlighted the lapses in the sheriff’s record-keeping. The story garnered 21,740 page views and nearly a minute of engagement. The story got wide play throughout California and around the country, appearing on member websites with photos by an AP photographer and photos Gecker worked to get that showed Singh and her partner in happier times.
For their collaborative exclusive on a key lingering aspect of the deadly Camp Fire, the team of Gecker, Ronayne, Linderman and Farrar wins this week’s Best of the States award.