GRASS FIRE DESTROYS 5 HOMES IN CALIFORNIA NEIGHBORHOOD

Residents are trying to pick up the pieces a day after a grass fire tore through a Northern California neighborhood, destroying five homes and damaging 10 others.

About 50 people fled after an initially small roadside fire spread in the city of Fairfield, about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, Tuesday afternoon, Fairfield Fire Battalion Chief Matt Luckenbach said.

No injuries were reported, Luckenbach said, as the wind- driven fire that started in some grass near Interstate 80 jumped a creek, skipped a freeway sound wall and raced through the neighborhood.

The seven- alarm blaze eventually grew to 40 acres as nearly 200 firefighters from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and three counties took more than two hours to get the fire under control, Luckenbach said Wednesday.