LOS ANGELES — The last time Kevin Devine’s mother heard from him was Jan. 7.

He was at his apartment on Boston Street in Altadena speaking on the phone with his mother, Margaret Devine, about a present he had gotten her. The next day, she could pick it up at her local market in Michigan. But as the evening went on, Margaret kept seeing updates about fires breaking out in Los Angeles and asked her son if he was safe.

“I said, ‘Kevin, you have to leave.’ He said, ‘I’m OK, Mom,’” she recalled.

What happened next is why Kevin Devine occupies a strange place in the Los Angeles fires — missing but not confirmed dead.

His landlord saw him outside the apartment complex in his car after 9 p.m. But no one has heard from him since. His car is not at the apartment building, so it is unlikely he returned. His family does not know where he went, or if he got caught in the fast-moving Eaton fire.

They have checked hospitals and convention centers, but they can’t get any information. His mother is already speaking in the past tense.

He was an actor. He was a substitute teacher.

Margaret Devine is not alone.

As the fires razed homes in Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Altadena, an untold number of people were not able to make it out in time. Firefighters and law enforcement personnel are beginning to dig through the rubble and finding their remains.

Most of the people first reported missing in the fires have been found safe, but with every passing day, hopes dim. Margaret and her other children know that Kevin Devine would reach out to them if he was able.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told the L.A. Times on Thursday that 31 people are still missing — 24 from the Eaton fire and seven from the Palisades fire.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s tally of those missing in the Palisades fire slightly differed, with that department saying five people were still missing instead of seven. Initially, the LAPD said 38 people were reported missing in that blaze, but 30 were found safe and three were found dead.

Officials warn the number of people still missing means that the death toll from the fires will likely continue to rise, though not by a massive amount. As of Thursday, officials have confirmed 17 deaths in the Eaton fire and 10 in the Palisades fire.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said Wednesday that the search and recovery of human remains is ongoing.

“They’re going through ... with cadaver dogs and trying to be able to locate remains and recover them, so that we, you know, can be accountable to the families who have missing relatives, and to do it in the most respectful way possible,” he said. “There will be people probably ... that weren’t reported missing.”

McDonnell said he expected the death toll to climb.

On Tuesday morning, search and rescue teams gathered by a map of Altadena at the Rose Bowl incident command center to begin another grid search of a vast zone of Altadena. The teams have been heading out into the area daily to search for bodies in the rubble, said Sgt. Bob Boese with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Across the county, others were receiving the news they dreaded.

Miva Friedli’s home was destroyed in the fire, but her niece Ruth Brown said that no one knew what happened to her.

The family reported the 86-year-old missing and agonized about her fate. They shared a hashtag, #HelpUsFindMiva, unsure if she might have made it out of the fire and was lost somewhere else, Brown said.

But on Thursday — what would have been Friedli’s 87th birthday — the family confirmed that search and rescue teams had found her remains in the rubble of her home.

“It’s a blessing, because we found her,” Brown said. “If we can get some closure it allows us to move on.”

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