When the Camp fire barreled toward this Sierra foothill town last Thursday morning, officials had a crucial choice to make right way: How much of Paradise should be evacuated?

Public health officials were responding to a norovirus outbreak at an evacuation center for fire victims in Chico, the main city near Paradise. 

Lisa Almaguer, the public information officer for the Butte County Department of Public Health, said that norovirus was confirmed at Neighborhood Church, a Chico shelter where about 200 evacuees are staying.

Almaguer did not know how many people were ill but said that the sick have been separated from the healthy.

The grim search for victims of California’s deadliest fire continued Wednesday as firefighters made progress in containing the Camp fire that burned the town of Paradise.

The fire has killed at least 56 people, destroyed more than 10,300 structures and scorched 138,000 acres in Butte County. It was 35% contained as of Wednesday evening, according to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officials.

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Malibu schools will remain closed until after Thanksgiving, the school district announced Wednesday.

Officials said many areas remain under evacuation in the city, where numerous homes were lost in the Woolsey fire. Here is a statement from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District:

Our hearts go out to all of the families and community members in Malibu, and in all the surrounding communities, who have lost homes, whose homes have sustained significant damage, and who are currently displaced. Most of the City of Malibu is still under evacuation order and we understand that many people are anxious to return to their properties to inspect loss, damage or at a minimum, very ashy and dusty conditions. All four of our schools are still in the current evacuation area. Malibu High School, Juan Cabrillo Elementary School, Point Dume Marine Science School and Webster Elementary School will remain closed until such time as we can safely reopen them. Right now, we know at a minimum that schools will be closed this week and the week of Thanksgiving.

After touring the site of the Camp fire in Paradise, Calif., on Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown said he was at a loss for words.  

“This is so devastating that I don’t really have the words to describe it,” Brown said at a news conference afterward in Chico. “It looks like a war zone. It is.”

Brown was by joined by U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, FEMA Administrator Brock Long and state fire officials to give an update on the Camp and Woolsey fires.

Anna Dise and her father, Gordon Dise, 66, watched news of the Camp fire approaching their home near Butte Creek for as long as they could Thursday until the power went out midday.

It’s hard for her to nail down times — the sky looked black even at 2 p.m. After that, it was up to Anna to keep an eye out for flames. About 7 or 8 p.m., she thinks, she saw them coming from the Skyway down the hill toward her and her father’s 2.5-acre property, in the 2700 block of Eskin Maidu Trail.

“I get why they turned off the power, to prevent more power lines from sparking and stuff, but it would have been nice to be able to watch the news and hear what was going on,” said Anna, 25.

Justin Freer, 38, idled in his Chevy Volt by the Arco station at Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway, waiting to see whether Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies would let him back to a property of his near Big Rock Drive.

Officials had begun repopulation efforts Wednesday afternoon, setting up a checkpoint to screen residents coming through the area. Malibu residents who live between the ocean and the northern city limit and in the neighborhoods of Serra Retreat and Sweet Water Mesa were allowed back home starting at 2 p.m. 

The Malibu Colony neighborhood and Civic Center area remained closed.

Freer, who also has a home in Thousand Oaks, had to flee the Woolsey fire on Thursday night and had not been able to get through to Malibu until Wednesday. His car was filled with luggage, Brawny paper towels and more.

While Laura Whitaker’s daughter took her 8-year-old son for a donated haircut, Whitaker hung out with her dog Sadie outside her tent.

Whitaker couldn’t go to a shelter with her large dog, a rescued Rottweiler, so here she was, camping instead.

“I love her to death,” Whitaker said of her dog. “I’m not going to put her in a kennel.”

The Camp fire — the deadliest wildfire in California history, with at least 48 dead and hundreds missing — haphazardly visited the buildings in Paradise.

The town’s high school is still standing, physically, though its fate remains uncertain now that up to 90% of its students have lost their homes in the fire.

The low-slung campus, with its green-and-white buildings situated among the pine trees, was unscathed in the fire. Gray smoke filled the air around it Wednesday afternoon, and power lines dangled over sidewalks.

DeAnn “Dee” Miller, 57, was homeless on the streets of Chico for a year and a half until this May, when her uncle got her a 16-foot travel trailer and parked it in Magalia.

Miller took care of her uncle, who has health problems, and she lived in the trailer, parked in the Paradise Pines RV park, until the fire.

Now, Miller fears, she’s homeless again with only the clothing she was wearing when she evacuated from the area.