The rain ends in northern California as the search for victims of forest fires continues

(Reuters) – The rains that flooded northern California for several days are expected to decline on Saturday, leaving room for clear skies as teams continue to search for the remains of the deadliest fire victims in the state's history. .

On November 8, the campfire almost destroyed the city of Paradise, 280 km northeast of San Francisco, killing at least 84 people and destroying 14,000 homes.

According to a list from the Butte County Sheriff's Office, some 475 people from Paradise and surrounding communities are still missing. Drone footage buttecountyrecovers.org/ The maps provided by Paradise to help residents find out if their home has survived show how the fire has spread from house to house in the mountain community of 27,000 residents.

Paradise was a popular destination for retirees and two-thirds of the victims named to date were over 65 years old.

The 2 to 3 inches (5 to 8 cm) of rain fell in the area in recent days have turned the ashes of thousands of homes destroyed into porridge, complicating the work of finding bodies reduced to fragments of bone .

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea warned that the remains of the victims could be "very small bone fragments" and some may never be found.

Firefighting crews controlled 95 percent of the 154,000-acre fire, five times more than San Francisco, said Andrew Freeborn, spokesman for the Department of Forestry and Protection Against Fire. the California fire.

Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the fire.

Thousands of people forced to flee Paradise spent Thanksgiving in warehouses in the nearby town of Chico, or with friends or relatives in nearby towns.