Rain douses flames but holds up search United States
Rain is helping to extinguish a deadly wildfire in northern California, but the moisture is also turning ash into a thick paste and hindering the hunt for telltale fragments of bone that could indicate a body.
Searchers resumed their grim task yesterday after a downpour eased up in Paradise, California. They fanned out across the ruins of a mobile home park, some combing the debris with rakes while others lifted up twisted metal to peer underneath.
Craig Covey, who leads a search team from southern California’s Orange County, said they were searching for seniors for a second time because there were people still missing whose last known address was in that neighbourhood.
The US’s deadliest wildfire in the past century has killed at least 84 people, and more than 560 are still unaccounted for. Despite the inclement weather, more than 800 volunteers are searching for remains, two weeks after flames swept through the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Two days of rain showers had complicated the search but also helped to nearly extinguish the Camp Fire, said Josh Bischof, operations chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The wildfire ignited on November 8 and has destroyed nearly 19,000 buildings, most of them homes.
The National Weather Service in Sacramento issued a warning for possible flash flooding and debris flows from areas scarred by major fires in northern California, including the areas burned in Paradise.
In southern California, more residents were allowed to return yesterday to areas that were evacuated because of the 391 sq km Woolsey Fire, as crews worked to repair power, telephone and gas services.