Better weather allows Calif. fire crews to achieve gains

VACAVILLE, Calif. — Crews aided by better weather and reinforcements with bulldozers made progress Tuesday penning in massive California wildfires that have killed at least seven people and burned nearly 1,300 homes and other buildings.

Firefighters in wine country north of San Francisco had cleared containment lines, used to prevent fires from spreading, around a quarter of blazes there that have scorched more than 550 square miles and destroyed more than 930 buildings.

To the east of San Francisco, firefighters had created containment lines around 15 percent of a group of fires that has charred more than 568 square miles and is now the third-largest in state history.

And to the south, officials said progress had been made against a fire in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties that has grown to 123 square miles, destroyed 330 structures and threatens another 25,000.

Helicopters dropped 200,000 gallons of water on the blaze Monday, making it “the best day yet,” said Mark Brunton, operations chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.

“The past couple days we’ve seen significant progress in our firefight on this incident,” Brunton said. “The weather’s really cooperating with us.”

Temperatures in the region have dropped, and lightning strikes that started many of the fires have stopped. Fire crews along with bulldozers were arriving from other states, but officials warned that the danger was far from over and admonished residents to stay out of evacuated areas.

Looters have been warned that they’ll be arrested. One man was found with $5,000 in his car, authorities said. Detectives were also investigating seven reports of missing people.