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More Than Half of Butte County Fire Victims ID'd Using Rapid DNA

Realizing they needed a swift way to identify the 86 people killed by the Camp Fire in November, the Butte County Sheriff's Office partnered with Colorado-based ANDE, which sent examples of its Rapid DNA analysis "instrument" and staffers to work with the agency for free.

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The Camp Fire, the state’s most destructive wildfire, which killed 86, was burning without containment in November when the Butte County Sheriff’s Office activated a private-sector partnership aimed at utilizing so-called Rapid DNA analysis to identify unknown victims.

As defined by the FBI, Rapid DNA is the automated process of creating a DNA profile from a cheek or “buccal” swab. The agency’s Rapid DNA initiative aims to link “FBI approved commercial instruments” that can generate a Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) DNA profile “within two hours” for the current CODIS infrastructure. Doing so, the FBI explains, can enable the search of “unsolved crimes of special concern” during booking, while arrestees are still in custody.

In Butte County, north of Sacramento, the sheriff’s office spearheaded the evacuation of nearly 46,000 people. Sheriff Kory Honea told Techwire that officials realized by the fire’s second day, Nov. 9, that the region would have to be searched to locate the missing — and identify the deceased, some of whom had been incinerated at temperatures similar to that of cremation. Scrolling through hundreds of emails, he found one forwarded from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) concerning Colorado-based Rapid DNA provider ANDE Corp., believed to be the first to receive National DNA Index System (NDIS) approval in June from the FBI. Discussions with a company representative, the sheriff said, convinced him its signature “instrument” — a ruggedized black box about the size of a printer — could yield fast identification results, and the price was right.

Officials at ANDE, incorporated in 2004 on “pioneering” Massachusetts Institute of Technology research and driven by development from a 2009 federal contract with agencies including the Department of Defense, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, offered to deploy immediately — for free. The company sent more than a dozen representatives — a number that varied from 15 to 20 — along with seven of its instruments, designed to produce automated DNA results in two hours, in the field. In place within a week of the fire’s start, staffers left the collection of actual remains to authorities but maintained two worksites. One, in Chico, centered on the collection of family DNA from survivors with missing relatives. The other, composed of several “instruments” in an RV, functioned as a mobile lab to compare remains and donor DNA.

Working with the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office, officials have been able to identify 67 victims to date — with nearly 69 percent of those 67, or 46, identified through ANDE’s Rapid DNA. Dental records aided in 13 identifications; fingerprints in the identifying of five people; and hardware — a prosthetic — in determining the name of one person, the sheriff said. Three people, he noted, remain unaccounted for in the blaze, which was contained Nov. 28.

“We’ve had very, very good success. We’re still not done with the process. We’re working on some of the more challenging ones to identify potential next-of-kin to compare against, but ANDE has been there with us from Day One,” Honea said.

The collaboration was a first for the company, which is assisting law enforcement from Houston to New York and Chicago in drilling down on suspects in burglary and property crimes. ANDE, its Chief Communications Officer Annette Mattern said, has helped identify victims in mass graves in the Middle East — but had never been involved in an incident like the Camp Fire, which was still unfolding. The experience has shown company officials the value of planning on the front end and thinking differently about donor DNA, families, and how remains are brought to the coroner’s office. Its technology also yielded ROI in traditional areas, as it was brought to bear on dental remains that could have been identified through dentist records — temporarily unavailable during the conflagration.

“Not only was ANDE able to do what some of the other sciences couldn’t; it was able to do some of the more conventional methods faster than the more conventional approach,” Mattern said. ANDE has “a number of California projects and pilots” in discussion, she said, but declined to say which state or local agencies are in negotiations. The company remained on-scene in Butte County through year’s end, training local officials in the instrument’s use as its personnel departed. In Contra Costa County on Jan. 15, the Board of Supervisors OK'd its sheriff’s office spending around $97,000 to buy a RapidHIT ID System, a Rapid DNA product from Thermo Fisher, according to the East Bay Times.

And in Butte County, Honea said Rapid DNA could yield exponential results if brought to bear on burglaries, in which serial offenders are not uncommon.

“What our experience has been is it’s not uncommon for a single individual to be prolific in the number of burglaries. If you can take that person off the street or intercede, you can really make a dent in the number of people who are victimized by the criminal,” Honea said.

ANDE’s ultimate goal is to help law enforcement in situations exactly like this, Mattern said.

“That is our intention, to be in service to law enforcement because this technology really should be available to everyone, everywhere, and we hope that we can keep that conversation alive about helping the people who are responding to crime and trying to make our communities better and safer every day,” Mattern said.

Theo Douglas is Assistant Managing Editor of Industry Insider — California.