First rain in months extinguishes California wildfires and increases landslide risk | Top news

CHICO, Calif. (Reuters) – The first major rainfall recorded for months in northern California on Wednesday put an end to the deadliest fire in the state's history, but it also raised Sudden flood risks that could hinder teams looking for human remains.

Rainfall was expected to fall between 102 and 152 mm (4 to 6 inches) over the weekend in the vicinity of the city of Paradise, a community of nearly 27,000 people located 280 km from the city. northeast of San Francisco and largely cremated by the so-called campfire.

The fire left at least 83 dead and 563 people are still missing, said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea at a news briefing.

"Rain is a concern for us and there is a risk of mudslides," Honea said. Researchers would be removed from areas threatened by landslides, he said.

The storm has added to the misery of evacuees camped in a Walmart parking lot near Chico.

Mitchell Manley was cold and wet, but grateful, he persuaded his old mother to evacuate. He said most of the dead were pensioners who thought they could overcome the flames at home.

"I was lucky to get her out, she was going to sit down," said Manley, who was camping at Walmart while he was waiting to return home to Concow.

Warehouses were opened in Chico to offer the evacuees protection against the cold and rain, while the famous chef Jose Andres was ready to prepare hundreds of Thanksgiving meals for the evacuees.

Some 830 people signed up to spend their Thanksgiving searching the ashes and rubble in the pouring rain, searching for human remains, Honea said.

The rains, which in some areas were probably accompanied by winds up to 45 km / h (72 km / h), raised fears that the ravines would become rivers of mud. The fire burned on 153,336 acres (62,000 hectares) of the foothills of the Sierra and is controlled to 85%.

"There is no vegetation to hold the earth and there is a risk that it starts to move, with mud taking everything in its path," said Johnnie National Weather Service forecaster Powell to Sacramento.

Firefighters have installed straw tubes known as barbels to prevent the cleaning of hillsides.

"With heavy rains, fires represent virtually nothing," said Josh Bishop, chief of Cal's fire operations section.

The death toll has been steadily increasing, and two additional names were added to the list on Wednesday to bring the total to 83 people, including 58 tentatively identified, Honea said.

The number of unrecorded people, which has fluctuated a lot over the last week, has dropped by 307.

Asked about the effects of the rain on the search for remains, Honea said it would make it more difficult to move through the debris, but he was less concerned about leftover washing than mud-caused headaches.

Still, he said that remains could never be found.

"What we are looking for in many ways are very small bone fragments, so it is certainly possible that not all of them are localized," Honea said.

The campfire cremated 13,503 homes in and around Paradise. The cause of the fire remains in the study.

The state has launched the largest forest fire clean-up operation in its history aimed at removing the toxic and radioactive ashes and debris left behind at burned places of residence, said Eric Lamoureux of the Bureau of Fire Services. governor's urgency.

Butte County reports that recent evidence of fire in California has shown that some homes and properties destroyed contain "high levels of concern for heavy metals, lead, mercury, dioxin, arsenic and other carcinogens. Some goods may have the presence of radioactive materials ".

(Report by Elijah Nouvelage in Chico, California, additional story by Andrew Hay in New Mexico and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, written by Andrew Hay, edited by Bill Tarrant, Leslie Adler and Paul Tait)

Copyright 2018 Thomson Reuters.