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GREENVILLE, Calif .– California’s largest wildfire razed much of downtown and some surrounding homes in a small mountain community in northern California.
The Dixie Fire ravaged Greenville on Wednesday night, destroying businesses and homes as the sky was bathed in an orange glow. A photographer on assignment for the Associated Press described seeing a burnt gas station, hotel and bar.
“If you are still in the Greenville area you are in imminent danger and you MUST go now !!” the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook earlier Wednesday.
The Sheriff’s Department and Cal Fire did not immediately respond to the messages.
The 3-week blaze reached over 428 square miles in Plumas and Butte counties.
Firefighters had attempted to protect the 800 city about 280 miles northeast of San Francisco by clearing debris from roads and marking hazards.
Pandora Valle, a spokesperson for the US Forest Service, told the San Francisco Chronicle earlier that “firefighters are fighting for the town of Greenville,” but could not provide more details on the damage.
The destruction came amid a red flag warning issued by forecasters warning of hot, dry conditions with winds of up to 40 mph. This could cause flames through wood, brush and grass, especially along the north and northeast sides of the vast Dixie Fire.
“I think we definitely have a few tough days ahead of us,” said Shannon Prather of the US Forest Service.
Firefighters were able to save homes and contain large areas of the blaze. But the flames crossed the perimeter lines in a few places on Tuesday, prompting additional evacuation orders for about 15,000 people east of Almanor Lake, fire officials said.
The heat from the flames created a cloud of pyrocumulus, a huge column of smoke that rose 30,000 feet into the air, said Mike Wink, chief of the state’s fire operations section.
Dawn Garofalo watched the cloud grow on the west side of the lake, where she fled with a dog and two horses, from a friend’s property near Greenville.
“There is only one entry and one exit. I didn’t want to be stuck up there if the fire was going through, ”Garofalo said.
From her camp on the lake bed, she watched the fire glisten on the horizon before dawn. “The flames were huge. They must have been 500 feet tall. Scary, ”she said.
The fire has threatened thousands of homes and destroyed 67 homes and other buildings since July 14. It was 35% contained.
About 150 miles to the west, the lightning-triggered McFarland Blaze threatened isolated homes along the Trinity River in Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The fire was only 5% under control. It had burned fiercely through nearly 25 square miles of drought-stricken vegetation.
Similar risky weather was expected in southern California, where advisories and heat warnings were issued for inland valleys, mountains and deserts for much of the week.
Heat waves and the historic drought associated with climate change have made forest fires more difficult to fight in the American West. Scientists say climate change has made the region much hotter and drier over the past 30 years and will continue to make weather conditions more extreme and forest fires more frequent and destructive.
More than 20,000 firefighters and support personnel were battling 97 large active wildfires covering 2,919 square miles in 13 US states, the National Interagency Fire Center said.
Montana recorded 25 large active fires on Tuesday, followed by Idaho with 21 and Oregon with 13. California had 11.
In Hawaii, firefighters took control of the 62-square-mile Mana Highway blaze that forced thousands to evacuate over the weekend and destroyed at least two homes on the Big Island.
Oregon’s Bootleg Fire, the country’s largest at 647 square miles, was 84 percent contained. Firefighters were busy cleaning up hot spots and reinforcing fire lines.
“The teams are working around the clock to make sure we are as prepared as possible for the extreme weather forecast for the next two days,” an update from the US Forest Service said.
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