GREENVILLE, Calif. — People living in the scenic forestlands of Northern California faced a weekend of fear as wildfires threatened to reduce thousands of homes to ashes. The Dixie Fire that incinerated much of the gold rush-era town of Greenville threatened more than 10,000 buildings in the northern Sierra Nevada. It had engulfed an area larger than the size of New York City. According to the state Department of Fire and Forestry Protection, it was the nation’s most prominent current wildland blaze and the third-largest in recorded California history.
Wind-driven flames destroyed dozens of homes and most of Greenville’s downtown on Wednesday and Thursday and heavily damaged Canyondam, a hamlet with a population of about three dozen people. Officials said the fire reached Chester, but crews managed to protect homes and businesses there. Charlene Mays kept her gas station in Chester open as long as she could, telling weary firefighters not to apologize for the trail of ash their boots left on the floor. But when the small town on the northwest shore of Lake Almanor lost power, Mays decided it was time for her to go.
She ran home to grab a box of valuables, including her husband’s class ring and jewelry. The smoke was so thick it was hard to breathe. Chunks of ash broke apart as they hit the ground, making a sound like broken glass. That was two days ago. Since then, Mays has lived in the parking lot of Lassen College in Susanville. Her husband stayed behind to maintain some water tanks firefighters were using. It’s just her, a miniature pinscher chihuahua named Jedidiah, and a pit bull named Bear. Her home was still standing on Friday, but her fate was bound by the direction of the wind. She wasn’t alone.
“I’ve got probably 30 of my regular customers right here,” she said.
The Dixie Fire, named for the road it started, now spans 679 square miles (1,760 square kilometers) and is just 21% contained. No injuries or deaths have been reported. Weather at the fire site was expected to have higher humidity and calmer winds Saturday, with temperatures topping 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) instead of the 40 mph (64-kph) gusts and triple-digit highs recorded earlier the week.
Still, within a couple of hundred miles of each other, the blaze and its neighboring fires posed an ongoing threat.
Heatwaves and historic droughts tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. Near Klamath National Forest, firefighters kept an eye on small communities that were ordered evacuated in the path of the Antelope Fire, which had thrown up flames 100 feet (30 meters) high as it blackened bone-dry grass, brush, and timber. It was just 20% contained.
Further northwest, some 500 homes scattered in and around Shasta-Trinity National Forest remained threatened by the Monument Fire and others by the McFarland Fire, both started by lightning storms last week, fire officials said. About a two-hour drive south from the Dixie Fire, crews had surrounded about a third of the River Fire that broke out Wednesday near Colfax and destroyed nearly 90 homes and other buildings. Three people, including a firefighter, were injured, authorities said. Evacuations for thousands of people in Nevada and Placer counties were lifted Friday.
