Fire evacuees do their best on a sad Thanksgiving

CHICO, Calif. (AP) — Patty Rough lost her Paradise home and most of her belongings in the Camp Fire, and she had no place to cook a family meal on Thanksgiving.

But she and her husband are safe, and she was still able to spend the holiday with her children over plates of turkey, cranberry sauce and pie at a feast for thousands of people put on by volunteers.

She’s sad about everything she lost but realizes that others have far less.

“Today we’re grateful; I don’t know about happy,” she said, tearing up as she sat next to her son and across from her daughter. “ ‘Happy’ Thanksgiving is kind of a weird thing at the moment.”

Rough is among the thousands of people whose homes burned down when the deadly wildfire ripped through Paradise and surrounding communities.

At least 84 people died, and more than 13,000 homes were destroyed.

The blaze was 95 percent contained Thursday, two weeks after it began. Rain that fell Wednesday night and started against Thursday afternoon aided the firefight but complicated the search for human remains in the debris left by the blaze.

Wet, windy, cold conditions were making it hard for workers to see and move.

It wasn’t a normal Thanksgiving for any of the evacuees or workers.

Matt Berger, a member of a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue team from Orange County, said he and his colleagues are trying not to “get too wrapped up in the fact that we’re not at home for the holidays.”

“It’s just another work day for us — trying to bring some closure to some of the families that are missing their loved ones,” he said, standing in the cold outside a Paradise store that didn’t burn down.