Rain hinders search but helps nearly put out California fire
PARADISE, Calif. (AP) — Rain is helping to extinguish a deadly wildfire in Northern California's Gold Rush country, but the moisture is also turning ash into thick paste and hindering the hunt for telltale fragments of bone that could indicate a body.
Searchers resumed their grim task Friday afternoon after a downpour eased up in Paradise, California. They fanned out across the ruins of a mobile home park, some combing 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 a mobile home park for seniors for the second time because there are people still missing whose last known address was in this neighborhood.
The searchers, many in yellow rain slickers and hard hats to protect against falling branches, looked for clues that may indicate someone couldn't get out, such as a car in the driveway or a wheelchair ramp. They're looking not only for bone, but anything that could be a pile of cremated ashes.
The nation'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 searched for remains on Thanksgiving and again Friday, two weeks after flames swept through the Sierra Nevada foothills, authorities said.
Covey's team of about 30 had been working for several hours Friday morning before stopping and returning to a staging area with hot coffee and food under two blue tents. An electric heater provided warmth.
While the rain is making everybody colder and wetter, they're keeping the mission in mind, search volunteer Chris Stevens said, standing under an awning as the team waited out a stretch of heavy rain.
"Everyone here is super committed to helping the folks here," he said.
Two days of rain showers have complicated the search but also helped nearly extinguish the blaze, said Josh Bischof, operations chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Once the rain clears, state officials will be able to determine if the blaze is fully out, he said.
The Camp Fire ignited Nov. 8 and has destroyed nearly 19,000 buildings, most of them homes. That's more than the worst eight fires in California's history combined, the agency said, with thousands of people displaced.
The volunteers interrupted by rain Friday found other ways to help.
Covey and several team members took two big brown bags full of lunch to 64-year-old Stewart Nugent, who stayed in his home and fought off flames with a garden house, a sprinkler and a shovel. He's been there for two weeks with his cat, Larry.
The first winter storm to hit California has dropped 2 to 4 inches of rain over the burn area since it began Wednesday, said Craig Shoemaker with the National Weather Service in Sacramento.
The weather service 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.