Windy weather hampers efforts to contain California wildfires

Dry and windy weather has dogged firefighters’ efforts to contain destructive fires that are devouring the bone-dry forests of drought-stricken Northern California.

An estimated 11,000 firefighters were on the lines of more than a dozen large wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings, forced thousands of people to flee communities and filled skies with smoke.

The monstrous Dixie Fire, burning since July 13 in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades, ballooned further to about 2,745 square kilometres (1,060 square miles) and was only 35 percent contained, authorities said.

The fire, which gutted the town of Greenville two weeks ago, has destroyed more than 1,200 buildings including 649 homes, according to ongoing damage assessments.

About 100 miles 161 kilometres (100 miles) to the south, there was still no official count of the number of homes destroyed when winds whipped the Caldor Fire into an inferno that roared through the Sierra town of Grizzly Flats this week. 

Those who viewed the aftermath saw few homes still standing in the community of 1,200 residents.

READ MORE: 2020: A year of raging wildfires, floods and scorching temperatures

Evacuees in the tents

Fire managers were rushing resources to the fire growing on steep slopes in a forested region southwest of Lake Tahoe.

More than 650 firefighters and 13 helicopters were assigned to the blaze, and air tankers from throughout the state were flying fire suppression missions there as conditions allowed, authorities said.

“The hope is with the additional resources and personnel on scene, we can really start to build that box around this fire and start the containment," said Keith Wade of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Evacuees from the Caldor Fire found refuge in places like the Green Valley Community Church in Placerville, west of the fire, where they set up tents and trailers in a parking lot.

Active fires in 12 states

California’s fires were among 104 large, active blazes Thursday in 12 states, mostly in the West, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Those fires combined have scorched nearly 10,360 square kilometres (4,000 square miles).

Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

Drought, heat, low humidity and winds have left California vegetation ready to burn this summer. More than two-dozen new fires erupted Wednesday alone. All but two were quickly contained.

One small but destructive blaze reduced dozens of mobile homes to ashes in Lake County, 130 kilometres (about 80 miles) north of San Francisco. 

Elsewhere in the northwestern region of the state, two big fires continued to burn in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

READ MORE: Dying gusts give crews hope in California fires