A California fire posed no immediate threat to Paradise; survivors of a deadly wildfire there still worry.
Zero containment; survivors of Paradise blaze fearing repeat
PULGA, Calif. — A fire near the northern California town of Paradise, which burned in a horrific 2018 wildfire, caused jitters among homeowners who were just starting to return to normal after surviving the deadliest blaze in U.S. history.
The Dixie Fire was tiny when it began on Tuesday, but by Thursday morning it had burned 3.5 square miles of brush and timber near the Feather River Canyon area of Butte County northeast of Paradise. It also moved into national forest land in neighboring Plumas County.
There was zero containment and officials kept in place a warning for residents of the tiny communities of Pulga and east Concow to be ready to leave.
Meanwhile, more people living along the eastern edge of an Oregon wildfire were told to evacuate late Thursday as the inferno began spreading rapidly and erratically in hot afternoon winds and threatened to merge with a nearby, smaller fire that had also exploded in size.
The Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in the U.S., has now torched an area larger than New York City and has stymied firefighters with erratic winds and extremely dangerous fire behavior. The fire, pushed by winds from the south, has the potential to move 4 miles or more in an afternoon and there is concern it could merge with the smaller, yet still explosive Log Fire, said Rob Allen, incident commander for the blaze.
The Log Fire started on Monday as three smaller fires but exploded to nearly 5,000 acres in 24 hours. It is also being fanned by winds from the south, Allen said.
Elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, firefighters say they are facing conditions more typical of late summer or fall than early July.
A wildfire threatening more than 1,500 homes near Wenatchee, Washington, grew to 14 square miles by Thursday morning and was about 10 percent contained, the Washington state Department of Natural Resources said.