Ernie Foss had been bed bound for more than a decade. His family provided him care at his Paradise home, where he struggled with an unusual condition that caused swelling over his entire body.

So when the relentless Camp Fire tore through his neighborhood on Edgewood Lane on Thursday, he didn’t have a way out.

Still, Foss’ stepson and caregiver, Andrew Burt, made every effort to get Foss up and into a wheelchair as a fast-moving wall of fire wiped out the town.

They almost made it.

Investigators found Foss’ body outside his home and next to his stepson’s burned-out van, Foss’ daughter, Angela Loo said. Burt remains missing.

“This is happening for all these people — It’s just unimaginable,” Loo said in a telephone interview from Oregon. “For our whole family, it’s been devastating. We’re in shock.”

As the number of dead continues to climb in the days after the fearsome blaze, a tragic picture of those who perished has begun to emerge. Like Foss, who was 63, many of the victims and missing people are seniors. Some had fixed incomes and like Foss, lived with mobility challenges or more serious disabilities.

The death toll hit 42 on Monday, with more than 200 people still unaccounted for in the fire that struck Thursday morning. As of Tuesday morning, it had burned 7,746 structures and continued to threaten another 15,500 structures, on its way to chewing through 125,000 acres. The fire was 30 percent contained. …

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