Warehouse fire victims texted goodbye messages

Officials in Oakland, California, resumed searching for victims of a warehouse fire over the weekend while death toll climbed to 36 as of Monday morning.

The flames brought the roof of the dilapidated building, known as “Oakland’s Ghost Ship”, crashing down, which has further impeded the work of rescuers.

In the hours after the Oakland blaze, Derick Ion Almena, the proprietor of the warehouse dubbed the “Ghost Ship, “took to Facebook to confirm that a fire had destroyed his belongings, but offered no condolences to those killed”.

“People familiar with the space said they can’t imagine a crowd exiting the space quickly under calm circumstances, let alone during a fire that witnesses said grew quickly”, the site reports. The fire department said that the building was maze-like and cluttered with objects, and attendees noted that the few exits were hard to locate.

Officials have said 36 people are now confirmed dead from a fire at a warehouse party in Oakland, California, and have opened a criminal inquiry.

Search operations stopped early this morning because of structural concerns at the building, including a portion of the exterior wall that is in danger of collapse. “Working under a wobbly, potentially collapsing wall is extremely unsafe”, she said, and work was stopped shortly after midnight local time.

“For us fire-fighters, working under a wobbly, a potentially collapsing exterior wall is extremely risky”, said Reed, “We will not put our fire-fighters in danger”.

But she added “we are still no closer to finding a cause”. Authorities had gone through about three-quarters of the building by Monday afternoon.

Almena told San Jose television station KNTV in an interview Monday that about 20 people lived there. They lost a friend in the blaze. She declined to say who her team has interviewed.

Almena had leased the space from its owner and then rented five recreational vehicles and other nooks on the ground floor as living spaces, said Danielle Boudreaux, a former friend of Almena and Allison.

Eleven victims have been positively identified, but all names have yet to be publicly released.

“All I can hope is that it was as quick and swift as possible, but there’s no way of knowing that”, said Randy Wittenauer, who could only pray that his son didn’t suffer. At one of many memorials set out for the victims of the tragic warehouse fire, candles were lit in the victim’s honor as messages and photos surrounded them. Investigators say they’ve sorted through about 70% of the warehouse, but have to remove the “Ghost Ship’s” ruins bucketful by bucketful.

Authorities have identified at least 11 of the bodies but withheld some of the names.