Wildfire destroys Calif. city

GREENVILLE, California – A three week old forest fire engulfed a tiny mountain town in Northern California, wiping out historic buildings and leaving much of the historic downtown area and apartment blocks in ashes, while a new windswept fire also destroyed homes as crews in dangerous weather on another Thursday prepared for explosive flame flow.

The Dixie Fire, swollen by bone-dry vegetation and 40 mph gusts, raged through the northern Sierra Nevada community of Greenville on Wednesday evening. A gas station, hotel, and bar were among the many furnishings gutted in the city, which dates from the California gold rush era and had some buildings that were more than a century old.

The fire “burned down our entire inner city. Our historic buildings, family houses, small businesses and our children’s schools are completely lost, ”wrote Kevin Goss, Plumas District Manager, on Facebook.

Officials couldn’t immediately tell how many buildings were destroyed, but photos and videos from the crime scene show that the destruction was widespread.

“We lost Greenville tonight,” said US Representative Doug LaMalfa, who represents the region, in an emotional Facebook video. “There are just no words.”

When the north and east sides of the fire exploded on Wednesday, the Plumas County Sheriff’s office issued an online warning to the city’s 800 or so residents: “You are in imminent danger and you MUST go now!”

The growing flame that erupted on July 21 is the largest current wildfire in the state and had blackened over 504 square miles, an area larger than the city of Los Angeles.

As of Thursday, it was the sixth largest fire in the history of the state, said the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Four of the state’s other five largest forest fires all occurred in 2020.

The neighboring Lassen Volcanic National Park was closed to all visitors because of the fire.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or deaths. Dozens of houses were already on fire before the flames restarted on Wednesday.

“We did everything we could,” said fire department spokesman Mitch Matlow. “Sometimes it’s just not enough.”

About 160 miles south, officials said between 35 and 40 houses and other buildings were on fire in the fast-moving river fire that broke out near Colfax, a town of about 2,000 people, on Wednesday. In a matter of hours, it ripped through nearly 4 square miles of dry bushes and trees.

There was no containment, and about 6,000 people in Placer and Nevada counties have been evacuated, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Earlier this week, around 5,000 firefighters had made progress with the Dixie Fire, rescued some threatened houses, leveled unburned vegetation and managed to encircle a third of the area.

More fire trucks and bulldozers have been ordered to aid the fight, Matlow said. On Wednesday, the fire grew by thousands of acres and an additional 4,000 people were ordered to evacuate, placing nearly 26,500 people in multiple counties under evacuation orders, he said.

Red flag weather conditions with high heat, low humidity, and gusty afternoon and evening winds erupted Wednesday and were expected to pose a continuing threat.

The winds were expected to change direction several times on Thursday, pressuring firefighters in sections of the fire that have not seen any activity in several days, officials said.

The trees, grass, and bushes were so dry that “if a glow lands, you’re virtually guaranteed to start a new fire,” said Matlow.

The Dixie Fire ran parallel to a canyon area that served as a chimney and got so hot it created enormous columns of pyrocumulus smoke. These clouds bring chaotic winds that make a fire “critically unpredictable” making it difficult to predict the direction of growth, he added.

Dawn Garofalo escaped from a friend’s mountain property with a dog and two horses, watching the rising cloud from the west side of Lake Almanor, a popular summer vacation spot with boating, fishing, and camping.

“There is only one way in and one way out,” she said on Wednesday. “I didn’t mean to be stuck up there when the fire came through.”

In Colfax, resident Jamie Brown had breakfast in a downtown restaurant Thursday morning while he waited to find out if his house was still standing or not.

He evacuated his property near Rollins Lake on Wednesday when “it looked like the whole town was going to burn down”. Conditions had calmed down a bit by Thursday and he was hoping for the best.

“I think I’d better have breakfast before I lose my home,” he said. “My house is right in the way if the wind sets the fire on a separate path.”

And about 150 miles west of the Dixie Fire, the lightning-triggered McFarland Fire threatened remote homes along the Trinity River in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The fire was only 7% contained after it burned nearly 85 square kilometers of drought-stricken vegetation.

Similar risky weather was expected across southern California, where heat warnings and warnings were issued for inner valleys, mountains and deserts for much of the week.

Heat waves and historic droughts related to climate change have made fighting wildfires in the western United States difficult. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier over the past 30 years, and the weather will continue to be more extreme and forest fires more frequent and more destructive.

More than 20,000 firefighters and relief workers fought 97 large, active forest fires that covered 7,560 square kilometers in 13 states, the National Interagency Fire Center said.

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Weber answered from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Janie Har and Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco also contributed.