Rain in the forecast will help the firefighters but could also trigger landslides



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The rain is on its way to northern California, burned by fire and suffocated by smoke, forecasters said on Sunday, as search for the dead and missing continued after the country's most destructive forest fires.

The fires have already left at least 76 dead and the number of missing has risen from 1,276 to 1,276, despite authorities that have located hundreds of people who have dispersed when the camp's fire devastated the mountainous city from Paradise.

GettyImages-1062990244 US President Donald Trump (c) talks with California's Lieutenant Governor Gavin Gavin Newsom (left), Paradise Mayor Jody Jones (2R), California Governor Jerry Brown ( r), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's administrator, Brock Long, while they find out the damage caused by the campfire in Paradise, California on November 17, 2018. Getty Images

The forensic recovery teams were to continue to examine the charred wreck Sunday, relying on DNA to confirm their identities.

It is expected that it will rain until four inches of rain late Tuesday to Friday in the foothills of the Sierra, announced the weather forecast center of the National Meteorological Service, including in Paradise , which was virtually wiped out by the camp fire.

The rain is good news for firefighters struggling to extinguish the flames, but it has also triggered landslide warnings in areas where fires burned trees, swept and burnt the earth.

The return of gusty winds could also stir up fires before the rain sweeps across mid-week states, Accuweather reported.

On Saturday night, firefighters controlled 55 percent of the campfire, while the Woolsey fire containment in southern California accounted for 84 percent, said Cal Fire.

The rain will also fall on San Francisco, helping to purify the air charged with unhealthy smoke from the campfire located about 175 km to the north.

Some sporting events were canceled Saturday in the San Francisco Bay Area, while the Environmental Protection Agency had measured "unhealthy" air quality, the San Francisco Chronicle and other media reported. Elderly people and children were asked to stay indoors.

The rain will help solve this problem, said Patrick Burke, forecaster at the National Meteorological Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

However, the rain will be a "two shots," he said.

"This will provide much-needed relief for firefighters and air quality, but dangerous mudslides can occur every time vegetation is burned on slopes and hills," he said. .

"The rain will be steady until Friday with about three inches and places that can get at least four inches of rain," he said. "And here again, wherever the vegetation is destroyed, there is not much to keep the soil and debris in place."

Rainfall of up to two inches of rain is also expected to hit southern California this week, including north of Sacramento, where the so-called Woolsey fire has killed at least three people, Burke said.

On Saturday, two forensic anthropologists from the University of Nevada, Reno, were helping firefighters sort through the debris of a mobile home park for seniors in Paradise.

Firefighters detached the sheet from a collapsed roof while anthropologists were recovering visibly calcined bone fragments, sorting them into paper bags.

Roger Fielding, deputy chief coroner for the Martin County Sheriff's Office, said that each site was treated like a crime scene and that every step of his recovery was documented with photographs.

"Our job is to pick up everything that can reflect the person's identity," he said.

More than a week later, firefighters were able to carve containment lines around 55% of the perimeter of the fire.

In addition to the loss of life, the material damage caused by the fire has made this fire the most destructive in California's history, posing the additional challenge of providing long-term shelter for thousands of displaced residents.

President Donald Trump had repeated Saturday that mismanagement of the forest was causing forest fires during a tour of parts of California devastated by deadly flames.

Accompanied by California Governor Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom, Trump was speaking in the city of Paradise, which was largely razed by the campfire in northern California.

"We have to maintain the management and we will also work with environmental groups, I think everyone has seen the light," the president told reporters.

"I do not think it will happen again to that extent," he added.

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