Dixie Fire tops 850,000 acres as evacuations shift
The Dixie Fire, California’s second-largest wildfire ever recorded, surpassed 850,000 acres this week.
Authorities have made numerous changes in evacuation orders — some new ones introduced and older ones eliminated or reduced to warnings — as activity has ebbed and flowed around the sprawling perimeter of the fire.
The blaze is nearly two months old. It sparked July 13 near the Cresta Dam in Feather River Canyon and has flared multiple times amid gusty winds, including this week with red-flag winds Monday through Wednesday.
The fire has reached 859,457 acres with 55% containment, Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service stated in a joint update Thursday morning. Authorities said fire activity reduced “slightly” overnight as gusty winds calmed a bit.
The Dixie Fire is burning in parts of Butte, Plumas, Lassen and Tehama counties, mostly near sparsely populated areas. It has also burned a large portion of Lassen and Plumas national forests.
The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services reported Thursday morning that about 2,700 residents remain evacuated, most of them in Plumas County. The Caldor Fire in El Dorado County, by comparison, has displaced about 48,000.
Plumas County downgraded some mandatory orders to warnings for areas north of Highway 36. Meanwhile, Lassen County sheriff ’s officials on Wednesday ordered new evacuations near the communities of Milford and Herlong, east of Highway 395, due to flaring.
Sheriff’s officials on Thursday afternoon lifted all remaining evacuation warnings for Tehama County, which had been in place for areas just north of Highway 36 near the Butte and Plumas county lines.
Cal Fire and the Forest Service say nearly 13,000 structures are threatened, a total that includes structures under mandatory evacuation orders and voluntary warnings.
The blaze has destroyed nearly 700 homes, close to 140 businesses and hundreds of minor structures, fire officials said Thursday.
Authorities have split the vast incident into a west zone and an east zone. Both zones are working to keep the fire away from Highway 395, according to the update from Cal Fire and the Forest Service.
The west zone is also “working aggressively” for containment and structure protection near the communities of Janesville, Milford, Buntingville, Herlong and Junction, according to Thursday’s update. Crews on the east zone are trying to bolster dozer lines to protect areas along Highway 70.
The official cause of the fire remains under investigation, but Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in a filing to the state’s utility regulator said one of its employees located a “healthy green tree” leaning on one of PG&E’s power poles near the origin point of the fire.