blackened

A hiker clambers across a scorched landscape of ash, his footsteps crunching on charred earth as he peers over a ridge at a burn scar pocked with blackened stumps.

"The fire spread to every corner -- I don't know if any consignment could escape," said one exhausted firefighter, whose uniform was greyed and hands blackened.

She said that people believed there was a "cover-up" and that the McCanns' names had been "blackened" and urged the couple to do a DNA test with Ms Wandelt.

“Char is good but you don’t want it blackened,” he said.

Tole, whose eyes had been blackened out to protect his identity at the time, is wearing what appears to be a neck brace and is hooked up to monitors.