Thunderstorms sparked as many as 75 wildfires in a wilderness area in far northern California on Saturday as officials farther south got close to containing a blaze that destroyed several homes and forced thousands to evacuate.
Overnight storms on Friday were responsible for the large number of fires in Shasta-Trinity National Forest, near Redding. Those fires range in size from less than 0.4 hectare to more than 304 hectares.
None immediately threatened homes, Forest Service spokesman Michael Odle said. Teams moved in on Saturday on the two largest fires.
PHOTO: AP
SOUTH OF FRISCO
South of San Francisco, a fire that burned homes and closed a stretch of highway was 90 percent contained and could be surrounded by the end of the day, said officials of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It had charred 255 hectares, or less than 2.59km².
However, evacuation orders remained in place on Saturday for the roughly 2,000 people who fled their homes on Friday.
Some evacuees spent the night at an emergency shelter set up at a local school.
About 650 firefighters were working in hot, dry weather to contain the blaze, which destroyed as many as 15 buildings, including several homes, and closed scenic Highway 1 in Santa Cruz County for hours, fire officials said.
The cause of the fire was still under investigation, Van Gerwen said.
It was the third major blaze to hit Santa Cruz County in the past month. A 210-hectare blaze destroyed 11 buildings in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and a fire near Corralitos covered more than 1,700 hectares and destroyed about 100 buildings.
To the south along the coast, firefighters battled a nearly 207km² fire in a remote part of the Los Padres National Forest in Monterey County. It was about half contained on Saturday.
In New Mexico, hundreds of firefighters battled blazes in the northern and southern parts of the state that have charred more than 259km², including more than 1,619 hectares on a ranch owned by media mogul Ted Turner.
In a remote southeastern part of the state, lightning-sparked fires have scorched more than 246km² of mainly desert landscape.
BIG FIRE
The largest fire, 32km southwest of Hope, doubled in size Friday because of gusty winds and has charred more than 16,188 hectares, or about 166km². Two other blazes, about 1.61km apart and 48km west of Roswell, have blackened more than 83km², and officials say the fires could merge.
In northern New Mexico, another fire that began as two blazes burned nearly 18km² on Turner’s Vermejo Park Ranch.
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