dna testing and make a positive identification. reporter: as dusk turns to darkness, first responders get a short reprieve, to reflect on the difficult job they have to do. it is relatively indescribable. it is complete and total devastation. we have been tasked to help give the community closure as best we can. there is personal for you. you re from paradise? yes, sir. my sons is up here in a home up here, i think that s typical of our local first responders. we re all touched personally by this incident. 15 miles west in the city of chico, the walmart parking lot has become the unofficial reasonable camp for evacuees with nowhere else to go. this isn t any organization. this is just people from all over chico and the state that are having to feeding people. it s amazing. he thought he lost everything, even his best friend. it was just amazing the
993 people remain unaccounted for. 77 deaths have been attributed to the so-called campfire which started on the morning of november 8th. by sunset that day the new york times reports the fire had swept over an entire mountain, surprising, trapping, and killing many of the residents of paradise and nearby towns. msnbc was there. this morning we go to the front lines in paradise with an eye-opening look at the recovery effort there. reporter: the search and rescue crews are literally going house by house. they ve zoned out the community. and they want to search every single parcel to look for every potential to find some of the people that are still missing. they have ran across certain components that they thought could be from either a human or an animal. then they ll call and do dna testing and try to make a positive identification. reporter: as dusk turns to