Wildfire threatens to engulf 6400 homes
A fast-moving wildfire in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains destroyed homes and threatened about 6400 residences on Saturday even as another blaze injured four firefighters in the state, fire officials said.
The so-called Butte Fire has destroyed 15 structures in rural Amador and Calaveras counties, where it covers an estimated 26,195 hectares, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) spokeswoman Lynn Tolmachoff said. It is only 10 per cent contained.
The fire grew overnight after officials initially overestimated the area of the blaze on Saturday, Tolmachoff said.
She expects the tally of destroyed homes to grow as inspectors assess the damage. Thousands of residents had to evacuate on Saturday.
‘‘There are a lot of homes there, but they’re spread pretty far and wide,’’ Tolmachoff said.
About 3300 firefighters are working to contain the fire, which erupted on Thursday and spread late on Saturday near the former gold mining town of Jackson.
About 160km to the northwest, the so-called Valley Fire yesterday injured four firefighters in Lake County where they had been combating the fast-moving, 160ha blaze, Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said. The four firefighters were assigned to a helicopter and had been dropped off to build containment lines when the fire burnt them, Berlant said. They were flown by helicopter to a burn centre. Their conditions were not immediately known.
Flames from a larger Sierra Nevada blaze, dubbed the Rough Fire in central California, sped north toward McKenzie Ridge, where fire crews continued to strengthen containment lines on Saturday, said Jim Schwarber, spokesman for the fire’s incident management team. About 3500 people were affected by a mandatory evacuation in the area.