Blaze erupts near site of deadliest U.S. wildfire
PULGA >> A blaze that erupted near the flashpoint of the deadliest wildfire in recent U.S. history was heading away from homes Thursday, but survivors of the 2018 blaze in the town of Paradise worried that history could repeat itself.
The Dixie Fire had burned 3.5 square miles of brush and timber near the Feather River Canyon area of Butte County and moved into national forest land in neighboring Plumas County.
There was zero containment, however, and officials kept in place a warning for residents of the tiny communities of Pulga and east Concow to be ready to leave.
In its early hours, the fire raced along steep and hardto-reach terrain about 10 miles from Paradise, the foothill town that was virtually incinerated by the Camp Fire that killed 85 people.
Larry Peterson, whose home in neighboring Magalia survived the previous blaze, said some of his neighbors were getting their belongings together in case they had to flee.
“Anytime you’ve got a fire after what we went through, and another one is coming up, you’ve got to be concerned,” he told KHSL-TV.
Other locals stocked up on water and other items.
The blaze is one of nearly 70 active wildfires that have destroyed homes and burned through 1,562 square miles in a dozen mostly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
In southern Oregon, the Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in the U.S., covered more than 355 square miles early Thursday after a day of extreme behavior and explosive growth.
Twenty-one homes have been destroyed and 1,900 remained threatened in the Fremont-Winema National Forest area just north of California that’s been gripped by a historic drought.
“This fire is going to continue to grow — the extremely dry vegetation and weather are not in our favor,” Joe Hessel, an incident commander, said in a statement.
The nearby Log Fire, which originated as three tiny fires Monday, ballooned to more than 7.5 square miles as winds pushed the flames eastward through wilderness.