The death toll from the California wildfires has risen to 16, local officials have confirmed, as emergency services take drastic measures to find human remains.

The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office confirmed over the weekend that the death toll from the now six wildfires has risen to more than a dozen.

The office attributed all of the deaths to the two largest and uncontained blazes - the Palisades and Eaton fires - with the two having claimed five and 11 lives respectively.

The distressing new toll is up by five on the last estimations from local officials, who have deployed units of cadaver to comb the scorched Golden State.

The dogs - trained specifically to recognise human remains - have been scouring through tens of thousands of acres of burned land as officials strive to understand the full deadly extent of the fires.

The grim work of sifting through the burnt-out wreckage that now scatters vast swathes of the Golden State continued on Saturday, with the dogs conducting systematic grid searches.

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