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Rain hinders search but helps nearly put out California fire

Paradise, Calif. • 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.