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NorCal towns burned by wildfire now fear flooding, toxic runoff from storm

Deer walk through a burn scar from the Dixie fire in the Greenville area. Officials are concerned about debris flows from heavy rainfall in Northern California Thursday evening through Friday morning.(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

In the burned-out town of Greenville, deep on a Plumas County mountainside, the storms now battering Northern California are another trauma in a year of heartbreak.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Plumas County Supervisor Kevin Goss said Thursday, just off a briefing with state emergency response officials. Torrential rainfall is expected to soften the state’s drought this weekend, but the rain also brings the risk of debris flows and floods in places hit by wildfires.


“We are going to have some problems,” Goss said. “It was inevitable for this to happen this way. But we will deal with it. We are strong and resilient.”

A large trough of low pressure hovering off the coast of the Pacific Northwest is driving repeated rounds of precipitation in the northern part of California. It ushered in the first major storm of the season Thursday, National Weather Service forecasters said, along with fears that places already hit by the disaster of flames may now be primed for the destruction of downpours.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.