Northwest of Los Angeles, the Mountain Fire exploded in size and prompted evacuation orders for more than 10,000 people as it threatened 3,500 structures in suburban communities, ranches and agricultural areas around Camarillo, according to a statement from Gov. Gavin Newsom. He said he has requested federal assistance for the area east of the Pacific coast city of Ventura.

The blaze was burning in a region that has seen some of California’s most destructive fires over the years. A thick plume of smoke rose hundreds of feet into the sky Wednesday, blanketing whole neighborhoods and limiting visibility for firefighters and evacuees. The fire grew from less than half of a square mile to 16 square miles (62 square kilometers) in little more than five hours.

Ventura County Fire Captain Trevor Johnson described crews racing with their engines to homes threatened by the flames to save lives.

“This is as intense as it gets. The hair on the back of the firefighters’ neck I’m sure was standing up,” he said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Two people suffered apparent smoke inhalation and were taken to hospitals, fire officials said. No firefighters reported significant injuries.

The erratic winds and limited visibility grounded fixed-wing aircraft, and gusts topped 61 mph (98 kph), said weather service meteorologist Bryan Lewis. Water-dropping helicopters were still flying.

First responders pleaded with residents to evacuate. Deputies made contact with 14,000 people to urge them to leave as embers spread up to 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away and sparked new flames.

“This fire is moving dangerously fast,” Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said.

Aerial footage from local television networks showed dozens of homes in flames across several neighborhoods as embers were whipped from home to home. Other footage captured horses trotting alongside evacuating vehicles.

Jade Katz, who said she is disabled and does not drive, waited for a friend to pick her up near her Camarillo Heights home with a suitcase full of medication and Bella, her Great Dane service dog. But the friend couldn’t reach her, so first responders sent a squad car to escort her to safety as she watched the neighborhood burn.

Officials said they were using all resources, including water-dropping helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft dropping fire retardant, but it was still burning out of control Wednesday afternoon. Andrew Dowd, a Ventura County fire spokesperson, said he did not have details of how many structures had been damaged.

Gus Garcia, who owns a ranch south of the fire, said he’s waiting to see whether conditions will change to decide if he should evacuate his horses and cattle. Around 12:30 p.m., his animals were still safe and he was trying to stay out of the way as others got their livestock out.

His ranch is surrounded by others with horses and alpaca, and Garcia said his neighbors in the canyon did not seem panicked.

“The horse community, they prepare for this because it’s always a possibility up here,” he said.

Meanwhile to the south, Los Angeles County Fire Department crews scrambled to contain a wildfire near Malibu’s Broad Beach as authorities briefly shut down the Pacific Coast Highway as flames burned near multimillion-dollar properties. Residents were urged to shelter in place while aircraft dropped water on the 50-acre (20-hectare) Broad Fire. It was 15% contained around 12:30 p.m. with forward progress stopped. Fire officials said two structures burned.

The National Weather Service office for the Los Angeles area amended its red flag warning for increased fire danger with a rare “particularly dangerous situation” label, and officials in several counties urged residents to be on watch for fast-spreading blazes, power outages and downed trees amid the latest round of notorious Santa Ana winds.

With predicted gusts between 50 mph (80 kph) and 100 mph (160 kph) and humidity levels as low as 8%, parts of Southern California could experience conditions ripe for “extreme and life-threatening” fire behavior into Thursday, the weather service said.

Forecasters also issued red flag warnings until Thursday from California’s central coast through the San Francisco Bay Area and into counties to the north, where strong winds were also expected.

Utilities in California began powering down equipment during high winds and extreme fire danger after a series of massive and deadly wildfires in recent years were sparked by electrical lines and other infrastructure. On Wednesday, more than 65,000 customers in Southern California were without power preventatively, and upwards of 20,000 in Northern California.

Wednesday’s fires were burning in the same areas of other recent destructive fires, including the 2018 Woolsey Fire, which killed three people and destroyed 1,600 homes near Los Angeles, and the the 2017 Thomas Fire, which destroyed more than a thousand homes and other structures in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Southern California Edison has paid tens of millions of dollars to settle claims after its equipment was blamed for both blazes.

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At least a dozen people, mainly firefighters, were treated for injuries that were mostly heat-related, authorities said. One person from Orange County was burned. No deaths have been reported.

The wildfires have been endangering tens of thousands of homes and other structures across the region after they sprung to life during a triple-digit heat wave over the weekend. Other major fires were burning in Idaho, Oregon and Nevada, where about 20,000 people had to flee a blaze outside Reno.

In the tight-knit community of Wrightwood that sits on the Pacific Crest Trail, authorities implored residents to evacuate the exploding Bridge Fire, which burned more than a dozen homes in the area.

Resident Erin Arias said she was racing up the mountain when she got the sudden order to leave and did, grabbing her passport and dog. On Wednesday, she and her husband doused water on the roof of their still-standing home. Their cat was missing, she said.

“It’s absolutely scary,” Arias said, looking at the burned embers of her neighbor’s home. “We’re really lucky.”

UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said the fire moved extraordinarily fast across complex terrain, likely giving Wrightwood residents less time to evacuate than usual and surprising even seasoned fire officials.

The Bridge Fire “had to go up mountain sides, burn down slope, jump across valleys, burn across new ridges, and then make it down slope again at least two other times in effectively one burning period,” he said.

California is only now heading into the teeth of the wildfire season but already has seen nearly three times as much acreage burn than during all of 2023. The White House said President Joe Biden was monitoring the wildfires in the West and urged residents to heed state and local evacuation orders.

Cooler temperatures were expected to potentially start tempering fire activity as the week progresses.

The full extent of the damage was not immediately known as firefighters battled multiple fires simultaneously. The three blazes include:

— The Airport Fire in Orange County that burned over 35 square miles (91 square kilometers). The fire was 5% contained Wednesday night and was reportedly sparked by heavy equipment operating in the area. Orange County Fire Capt. Steve Concialdi said eight firefighters were injured, mostly heat-related. One resident suffered smoke inhalation and another burns, he said. Several homes burned in El Cariso Village.

— The Line Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest that was 18% contained Wednesday and charred 57 square miles (148 square kilometers). The blaze injured three firefighters. Authorities said it was caused by arson in Highland. A suspect was arrested Tuesday.

— The Bridge Fire east of Los Angeles that grew tenfold in a day, burning 78 square miles (202 square kilometers) and torching at least 33 homes and six cabins and forcing the evacuation of 10,000 people. The cause of the fire was not immediately known. It was zero percent contained Wednesday night.

With so many fires raging at once, crews were at their limits, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said.

“As a region, we’re currently at drawdown for fire personnel and resources,” he said, adding that authorities have requested assistance from Northern California and nearby states.

Gov. Gavin Newsom sent National Guard troops in to help with evacuations.

In El Cariso Village, a community of 250 along Highway 74 in Riverside County, an Associated Press photographer saw at least 10 homes and several cars engulfed in flames.

Kevin Fetterman, Orange County Fire Authority Incident Commander, said the blaze has been difficult to tame because of the terrain and dry conditions and because some areas hadn’t burned in decades.

More than 5,500 homes in Riverside County were under evacuation orders, affecting more than 19,000 residents. Several recreational cabins and structures in the Cleveland National Forest were damaged.

In San Bernardino County, some 65,600 homes and buildings were under threat by the Line Fire, and residents along the southern edge of Big Bear Lake were told to leave Tuesday.

The Line Fire blanketed the area with a thick cloud of dark smoke, which provided shade for firefighters trying to get ahead of winds expected later Wednesday, said Fabian Herrera, a spokesperson for the Line Fire.

A man from the town of Norco suspected of starting the Line Fire on Sept. 5 was arrested and charged with arson, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. Officials did not specify what was used to start the fire.

Investigators collected evidence from the delivery driver’s vehicle and home that suggests he could have been involved in starting other fires, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said Wednesday.

On the Nevada border with California near Reno, the Davis Fire forced thousands of people to evacuate over the weekend, destroyed one home and a dozen structures and charred nearly 9 square miles (23 square kilometers) of timber and brush along the Sierra Nevada’s eastern front.

Rich Meyr and Evelyn Kelley were the first arrivals at an evacuation center set up Wednesday at a recreation center in south Reno. Both said they refused to evacuate previous fires but decided to play it safe this time.

“My son’s wedding is Saturday. I threw all the flowers and gowns in the RV and we left. It looks like a garden shop inside that RV,” Kelley said. “But who wants to burn alive?”

More than 600 firefighters kept the blaze from growing Wednesday despite high winds that grounded all aircraft that had dropped retardant on the flames over the past two days. The fire was about 30% contained Wednesday night.

Elsewhere, a Colorado man was charged with arson after an investigation into a wildfire this summer that destroyed 29 homes and caused more than $30 million in property damage near Loveland, Colorado.

___

Thayer reported from El Cariso Village, Taxin from Santa Ana, California, and Rodriguez from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, Amy Hanson in Helena, Montana, Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles and Thomas Peipert in Denver contributed.

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KLAMATH RIVER, Calif. (AP) — California firefighters made gains against the state’s deadliest and largest wildfire of the year, but forecasters warned Thursday that spiking temperatures and plunging humidity levels could create conditions for further growth.

After five days of no containment, the McKinney Fire in Siskiyou County near the Oregon border was 10% surrounded by Wednesday evening. Bulldozers and hand crews were making progress carving firebreaks around much of the rest of the blaze, fire officials said.

At the fire’s southeastern corner, evacuation orders for sections of Yreka, home to about 7,800 people, were downgraded to warnings, allowing residents to return home but with a caution that the situation remained dangerous.

About 1,300 people remained under evacuation orders, officials said at a community meeting Wednesday evening.

The fire didn’t advance much at midweek, following several days of brief but heavy rain from thunderstorms that provided cloudy, damper weather. But as the clouds clear and humidity levels drops in the coming days, the fire could roar again, authorities warned.

“This is a sleeping giant right now,” said Darryl Laws, a unified incident commander on the blaze.

Weekend temperatures could reach triple digits as the region dries out again, said meteorologist Brian Nieuwenhuis with the National Weather Service office in Medford, Oregon.

“The heat, the dry conditions, along with afternoon breezes, that’s the kind of thing that could keep the fire pretty active,” he said Thursday.

The blaze broke out last Friday and has charred nearly 92 square miles (238 square kms) of forestland, left tinder-dry by drought. More than 100 homes and other buildings have burned and four bodies have been found, including two in a burned car in a driveway.

The blaze was driven at first by fierce winds ahead of a thunderstorm cell. More storms earlier this week proved a mixed blessing. A drenching rain Tuesday dumped up to 3 inches (7.6 cm) on some eastern sections of the blaze but most of the fire area got next to nothing, said Dennis Burns, a fire behavior analyst.

The latest storm also brought concerns about possible river flooding and mudslides. A private contractor in a pickup truck who was aiding the firefighting effort was hurt when a bridge gave out and washed away the vehicle, Kreider said. The contractor had non-life-threatening injuries, she said.

The progress against the flames came too late for many people in the scenic hamlet of Klamath River, which was home to about 200 people before the fire reduced many of the homes to ashes, along with the post office, community center and other buildings.

At an evacuation center Wednesday, Bill Simms said that three of the four victims were his neighbors. Two were a married couple who lived up the road.

“I don’t get emotional about stuff and material things,” Simms said. “But when you hear my next-door neighbors died … that gets a little emotional.”

Their names haven’t been officially confirmed, which could take several days, said Courtney Kreider, a spokesperson with the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office.

Simms, a 65-year-old retiree, bought his property six years ago as a second home with access to hunting and fishing. He went back to check on his property Tuesday and found it was destroyed.

“The house, the guest house and the RV were gone. It’s just wasteland, devastation,” Simms said. He found the body of one of his two cats, which he buried. The other cat is still missing. He was able to take his two dogs with him to the shelter.

Harlene Schwander, 82, lost the home she had just moved into a month ago to be closer to her son and daughter-in-law. Their home survived but her house was torched.

Schwander, an artist, said she only managed to grab a few family photos and some jewelry before evacuating. Everything else — including her art collection — went up in flames.

“I’m sad. Everybody says it was just stuff, but it was all I had,” she said.

Meanwhile, firefighters expected Thursday to fully surround a 1,000-acre (404-hectare) spot fire on the northern edge of the McKinney Fire.

California and much of the rest of the West is in drought and wildfire danger is high, with the historically worst of the fire season still to come. Fires are burning in Montana, Idaho and Nebraska and have destroyed homes and threaten communities.

Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. California has seen its largest, most destructive and deadliest wildfires in the last five years. In 2018, a massive blaze in the Sierra Nevada foothills destroyed much of the city of Paradise and killed 85 people, the most deaths from a U.S. wildfire in a century.

In northwestern Montana, a fire that has destroyed at least four homes and forced the evacuation of about 150 residences west of Flathead Lake continued to be pushed north by winds on Wednesday, fire officials said.

The Moose Fire in Idaho has burned more than 85 square miles (220 square km) in the Salmon-Challis National Forest while threatening homes, mining operations and fisheries near the town of Salmon.

And a wildfire in northwestern Nebraska led to evacuations and destroyed or damaged several homes near the small city of Gering.

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SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Thousands of wildfires ignite in the U.S. each year, and each one requires firefighters to make quick decisions, often in difficult conditions like high winds and lightning.

Crews and managers must determine when to bring in aircraft, what time of day is best to battle flames, whether to evacuate residents and even if certain fires should be extinguished at all.

In the West, which sees many of the country’s largest fires, they do all this amid the backdrop of prolonged drought and other climate change-induced conditions that have made wildfires more destructive. Other challenges include a century of reflexive wildfire suppression and overgrown forests, experts say, and communities that have crept into fire-prone areas.

Russ Lane, fire operations chief for the Washington state Department of Natural Resources, explains how some key firefighting decisions are made:

WHY DO FIRE MANAGERS LET SOME WILDFIRES BURN?

Sometimes fires fit a beneficial land management goal, like when they burn in a wilderness area or national park.

Fires are part of the natural forest cycle, and “at times that’s the right approach,” said Lane, who is in his 35th season as a firefighter, much of that spent in western Oregon. He joined Washington’s natural resources agency in 2019.

Also, wildfires sometimes burn in areas where it is unsafe to put firefighters.

WHEN DO FIRE MANAGERS DEPLOY AIRCRAFT?

Planes or helicopters are used if a wildfire is burning too intensely to send in ground forces, or if aircraft are the best way to deliver water or retardant, Lane said.

“You want to hit a fire quick so it stays small,” Lane said.

The goal is to keep them from erupting into megafires. Cal Fire, California’s firefighting agency, keeps an average of 95% of blazes to 10 acres (4 hectares) or less.

But Lane said aircraft alone are usually not enough to extinguish a fire. “It takes boots on the ground.”

Aircraft also can face numerous visibility limitations when trying to make water drops on a wildfire.

HOW HAS TECHNOLOGY HELPED?

When it comes to early detection, one innovation is replacing fire lookout towers staffed by humans with cameras in remote areas, many of them in high-definition and armed with artificial intelligence to discern a smoke plume from morning fog. There are 800 such cameras scattered across California, Nevada and Oregon.

Fire managers also routinely summon military drones to fly over fires at night, using heat imaging to map their boundaries and hot spots. They can use satellite imagery to plot the course of smoke and ash.

WHAT IS THE BEST TIME OF DAY TO ATTACK A BLAZE?

Generally the heat of a summer day is not the best time to fight wildfires.

“We are pretty successful in the morning, late evening or overnight,” Lane said.

ARE WILDFIRES HARDER TO BATTLE IN TIMBER OR GRASSLANDS?

Dry lightning puts dozens of fires on the landscape, Lane said, and weather is a major factor in their spread.

Wildfires in grassland tend to grow more quickly, and are more susceptible to expanding when there are high winds, Lane said. Fires in timberlands don’t grow as fast, but they are more difficult to extinguish.

“With grass, a little rain and it goes out,” Lane said.

HOW TO SAVE HOUSES WHEN FIRES ARE CLOSE?

Lane said the building material used on a house, and the nearby vegetation, are big factors in determining if a house can be saved when fire approaches.

Houses with wooden roofs and lots of flammable vegetation around them are hardest to save. Usually a fire crew will spray water around a house to protect it.

Sometimes they will burn out the vegetation around a house to starve an approaching wildfire. If the homeowner keeps brush well away from a home prior to a fire that is a big help, Lane said.

WHERE DO FIRE NAMES COME FROM?

Usually a fire is named by the first unit of firefighters on the scene. Most of the time the name reflects a nearby geographic feature, such as a creek or valley.

California’s massive Dixie Fire, for instance, was named after the road where it started on July 14.

WHY DO FIREFIGHTERS SPEND SO MUCH TIME DIGGING LINES?

“Every fire has to have a dirt trail around it,” Lane said. “That’s to separate the fuel from the fire.”

Firefighters also get help when the flames burn toward a river, a rocky area or a road. “Separating fuel from fire is what stops them,” he said.

WHO LEADS A PARTICULAR FIREFIGHTING EFFORT?

Wildfires get one of five ratings, with Type 5 the least dangerous and Type 1 the most dangerous. More than 95% of all fires are smaller Type 4 or 5 wildfires and are quickly put out by local firefighters.

Larger fires, like the ones the Washington state Department of Natural Resources responds to, are assigned an incident commander, said Janet Pearce, agency spokeswoman.

The commander creates a set of objectives, which guides the command and general staff. An operations section chief then devises the strategy for the operational firefighting effort.

WHEN DO YOU ORDER RESIDENTS TO IMMEDIATELY EVACUATE?

Emergency managers consider fire behavior, predicted weather and the amount of time it will take to evacuate, when making the decision to order people to leave, Lane said.

They also consider the availability of shelters and the potential for harm or loss of human life.

Occasionally, an order is given to “shelter in place.” This is typically done when there is either no time to escape an oncoming fire, or it would be more hazardous to evacuate than remain in place, he said.

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After an extensive review of fire damage, Gov. Gavin Newsom requested a presidential major disaster declaration for eight counties, Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Office of Emergency Services, told a briefing near Sacramento.

If approved, the declaration would provide a wide range of assistance including housing, food aid, unemployment and governmental emergency costs, Ghilarducci said.

Nearly 43,000 Californians were under under evacuation orders and more than 500 households were in shelters, he said.

New concerns were developing at the explosive Caldor Fire southwest of Lake Tahoe, the famed alpine lake straddling the California-Nevada state line and surrounded by peaks of the Sierra Nevada and resort communities.

The Caldor Fire has become the nation’s number one priority for firefighting resources, said Chief Thom Porter, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“It is knocking on the door to the Lake Tahoe basin,” Porter said. “We have all efforts in place to keep it out of the basin but we do need to also be aware that is a possibility based on the way the fires have been burning.”

Porter said he personally did not believe the fire would get into the basin but that he could be proved wrong.

The Caldor Fire has incinerated more than 166 square miles (430 square kilometers) of El Dorado National Forest and continuing assessments showed 447 buildings destroyed. More than 17,000 structures were still under threat.

Two police officers from the Sacramento County city of Galt were in critical condition after a head-on traffic collision while they were headed to the Caldor Fire under a law enforcement mutual aid deployment, Ghilarducci said.

To the north, containment increased to 40% at the Dixie Fire, which has burned more than 1,130 square miles (2,926 square kilometers) in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades. Ongoing assessments showed 1,259 buildings destroyed, including 678 single-family homes, Cal Fire said. Nearly 13,000 structures remained threatened.

In Nevada, public schools in the Reno and Sparks area and parts of Lake Tahoe were closed Monday due to wildfire smoke, affecting 67,000 students.

In Northern California, where most of the blazes are burning, there were no red flag warnings for critical conditions but the seven-day outlook called for moderate fire danger. In Southern California, meanwhile, moist ocean air has been keeping skies cloudy and temperatures cooler than normal well into each day.

Porter said that meant there was low potential for large new fires in Southern California, allowing firefighting resources to be surged from south to north.

While Southern California has so far escaped large-scale wildfires this year, Los Angeles officials on Monday urged residents to be aware of what’s going on in the north because the region’s high fire season is typically late in the year when dry, gusty Santa Ana winds blast out of the interior and flow toward the coast.

“That awareness is going to help us when it happens here in Southern California,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas said during a briefing to display the city’s fleet of firefighting helicopters at Van Nuys Airport.

The mix of spring growth dried out by summer heat and high winds creates “a dangerous condition that could lead to large, fast-moving brush fires,” he said.

California’s fires were among more than 90 large, active blazes in the U.S. on Monday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

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GRIZZLY FLATS, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters faced dangerously windy weather Tuesday as they struggled to keep the nation’s largest wildfire from advancing toward a Northern California city while a portrait of devastation emerged in a small mountain community hit by another inferno.

Winds spawned by the arrival of a new weather system Monday afternoon pushed the monstrous Dixie Fire to within about 8 miles (12.8 kilometers) of Susanville, population about 18,000, while to the southeast a small blaze called the Caldor Fire exploded through through Grizzly Flats, a town of about 1,200.

Very few homes were left standing in Grizzly Flats, where streets were littered with downed power lines and poles. Houses were reduced to smoldering ash and twisted metal with only chimneys rising above the ruins. A post office and elementary school were also destroyed.

Two people with serious or severe injuries were airlifted to hospitals from the Grizzly Flats area, fire officials said.

At the Dixie Fire, numerous resources were put into the Susanville area, where residents were warned to be ready to evacuate, said Mark Brunton, an operations section chief.

“It’s not out of play, and the next 24 hours are going to be crucial to watch as to what the fire is going to do there,” he told an online briefing.

To the east, spot fires became established south of the small community of Janesville, which had been ordered evacuated. Some structures were lost there — images captured by The Associated Press showed a home consumed by flames — but a surge of firefighters was able to herd the fire around the majority of the town, Brunton said.

The Dixie Fire is the largest of nearly 100 major wildfires burning across more than a dozen Western states that have seen historic drought and weeks of high temperatures and dry weather that have left trees, brush and grasslands as flammable as tinder. Climate change has made the U.S. West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

Susanville is the seat of Lassen County and the largest city that the Dixie Fire, named for the road where it started, has approached since it broke out last month. The former Sierra Nevada logging and mining town has two state prisons, a nearby federal lockup and a casino.

Ash fell from the advancing fire, and a police statement urged residents “to be alert and be ready to evacuate” if the fire threatens the city.

The weather forecast prompted Pacific Gas & Electric to warn that it might cut off power to 48,000 customers in parts of 18 California counties Tuesday evening through Wednesday to prevent new fires that could be sparked by wind damage to power lines.

The Dixie Fire has scorched more than 940 square miles (2,434 square kilometers) in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades since it ignited on July 13 and eventually merged with a smaller blaze. It’s less than a third contained.

Investigations are continuing, but PG&E has notified utility regulators that the Dixie and Fly fires may have been caused by trees falling into its power lines. The Dixie Fire began near the town of Paradise, which was devastated by a 2018 wildfire ignited by PG&E equipment during strong winds. Eighty-five people died.

Ongoing damage surveys have counted more than 1,100 buildings destroyed, including 630 homes, and more than 16,000 structures remained threatened. Numerous evacuation orders were in effect.

The Caldor Fire started Saturday in El Dorado County and remained small until winds fueled its growth to about 10 square miles (26 square kilometers).

About 2,500 people were under evacuation orders and warnings, said Chris Vestal, a fire spokesman. Only a handful of firefighters remained in the town Tuesday, extinguishing residual fires.

Authorities confirmed structures were destroyed and damaged in Grizzly Flats and two other area communities, but Vestal said he could not say how many were affected as it was not safe for inspectors.

“They’re worried about trying to put out the fire or save homes,” he said. He said one person was injured in the fire. He did not provide additional details.

Tami Christner, 36, said she and her family left their Grizzly Flats home late Monday when they got the notice to evacuate. She and her husband started packing earlier in the day and got their three children, 20 chickens, three ducks, two cats, two hamsters, a dog and a rabbit out. One cat, Minion, was lost and didn’t make it out with them, she said.

“I am not 100% sure if my house is gone, but it might be,” she said.

People throughout the region were offering assistance to evacuees, including the four-footed kind. Susan Collins of Placerville used her horse trailer to help move two horses Tuesday after offering help on an El Dorado County Facebook page.

“I know not everybody is prepared when something like this happens, and my purpose in life is to be there to help people,” she said.

Across the state line in Nevada, school administrators delayed start times in the Reno-Sparks because of a cloak of wildfire smoke from the Dixie Fire blanketing the region. Smoke plumes from the Caldor Fire were also visible from northern Nevada.

Two dozen fires were burning in Montana and nearly 50 more in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, according to the National Fire Interagency Center.

In Montana, authorities ordered evacuations on Tuesday for several remote communities in north- central Montana as strong winds propelled a large wildfire toward inhabited areas.

The mandatory evacuation covered Lodge Pole, a town of about 300 people on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, and the former mining town of Zortman, which has about two dozen people, KOJM reported.

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GREENVILLE, Calif. (AP) — California’s largest single wildfire in recorded history continued to grow Wednesday after destroying more than 1,000 buildings, nearly half of them homes, while authorities in Montana ordered evacuations as a wind-driven blaze roared toward several remote communities.

The dangerous fires were among some 100 large blazes burning across 15 states, mostly in the West, where historic drought conditions have left lands parched and ripe for ignition.

The east end of Northern California’s massive Dixie Fire flared up on Tuesday as afternoon winds increased, fire officials said.

Burning through bone-dry trees, brush and grass, the fire has destroyed at least 1,045 buildings, including 550 homes, in the northern Sierra Nevada. Newly released satellite imagery showed the scale of the destruction in the small community of Greenville that was incinerated last week during an explosive run of flames.

The Dixie Fire, named after the road where it started on July 14, by Wednesday morning covered 783 square miles (2,027 square kilometers) and was 30% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. At least 14,000 remote homes were still threatened.

The Dixie Fire is the largest single fire in California history and the largest currently burning in the U.S. It is about half the size of the August Complex, a series of lightning-caused 2020 fires across seven counties that were fought together and that state officials consider California’s largest wildfire overall.

The fire’s cause was under investigation. Pacific Gas & Electric has said it may have been sparked when a tree fell on one of its power lines.

California authorities arrested a man last weekend who is suspected in an arson fire in remote forested areas near the Dixie Fire.

The 47-year-old suspect was charged with setting a small blaze in Lassen County, which is among the counties where the larger blaze is burning, around July 20.

In southeastern Montana, communities in and around the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation were ordered to evacuate as the uncontrolled Richard Spring Fire grew amid erratic winds.

The order included Lame Deer, where people who fled the fire early Tuesday had sought shelter, only to be displaced again that night when the fire got within several miles. The town of about 2,000 people is home to the tribal headquarters and several subdivisions and is surrounded by rugged, forested terrain.

Also ordered to leave were about 600 people in around Ashland, a small town just outside the reservation with a knot of businesses along its main street and surrounded by grasslands and patchy forest.

No homes were reported destroyed, Rosebud County Sheriff Allen Fulton said. Two homes caught fire Tuesday but were saved, including one near Lame Deer. Sheriff’s deputies used fire extinguishers on the flames and a passing fire helicopter dropped a bucket of water to put it out, Fulton said.

Heavy winds were forecast to return to the area on Wednesday, and authorities were concerned that the fire would again advance toward Ashland and Lame Deer.

The flames came right up to a subdivision outside Ashland along the Tongue River and were within several miles of the town by Wednesday morning.

Powerful gusts Tuesday caused the blaze to explode across more than 230 square miles (600 square kilometers) as the fire jumped roads, creeks and fire lines created in an attempt to prevent it from growing. It was 0% contained Wednesday morning.

Heat waves and historic drought tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West.

Scientists have said climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. The fires across the West come as parts of Europe are also enduring large blazes spurred by tinder-dry conditions.

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Video in the Big Bear Lake area of the San Bernardino National Forest showed the Jeffrey pine, believed to be nearly 200 years old, catch fire after being hit by a bolt of lightning and then split at its trunk, awash in flames, KABC reported.

Michael Bogan, who filmed the scene across the way from the Big Bear Airport, said he saw the flash of lightning.

“It was a gorgeous 200+-year-old healthy tree that had an unlucky day,” Bogan tweeted.

U.S. Forest Service firefighters responded to five separate lightning strike fires on Saturday, the San Bernardino National Forest said. Because of its size and for safety reasons, the aging pine was impossible to take down, KTLA reported.

A fire crew was assigned to the area overnight as the big tree smoldered, the television station reported. Firefighters eventually cut the tree down, KABC reported.

Bob D’Angelo | Contributed

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GREENVILLE, Calif. (AP) — California’s largest wildfire exploded again after burning for nearly three weeks in remote mountains and officials warned Tuesday that hot, dry weather would increase the risk of new fires across much of the state.

Firefighters saved homes Monday in the small northern California community of Greenville near the Plumas National Forest as strong winds stoked the Dixie Fire, which grew to nearly 400 square miles (1,036 square kilometers) across Plumas and Butte counties.

“Engines, crews and heavy equipment shifted from other areas to increase structure protection and direct line construction as the fire moved toward Greenville,” the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, said Tuesday morning.

Evacuations were ordered for the community of about 1,000 people as well as for the east shore of nearby Lake Almanor, a popular resort area. About 3,000 homes were threatened by the blaze that has destroyed 67 houses and other buildings since breaking out July 14. It was 35% contained.

Crews contended with dry, hot and windy conditions “and the forecast calls for the return of active fire behavior,” Cal Fire said.

Similar weather was expected across Southern California, where heat advisories and warnings were issued for interior valleys, mountains and deserts for much of the week.

Heat waves and historic drought tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

More than 20,000 firefighters and support personnel were battling 97 large, active wildfires covering 2,919 square miles (7,560 square kilometers) in 13 U.S. states on Tuesday, the National Interagency Fire Center said.

Dry conditions and powerful winds made for dangerous fire conditions again on Tuesday in Hawaii.

Firefighters gained control over the 62-square-mile (160-square-kilometer) Nation Fire that forced thousands of people to evacuate over the weekend and destroyed at least two homes on the Big Island.

About 150 miles (240 km) west of California’s Dixie Fire, the lightning-sparked McFarland Fire threatened remote homes along the Trinity River in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The nearly 25-square-mile (65-square-mile) fire was 5% contained Tuesday.

In southern Oregon, lightning struck parched forests hundreds of times in a 24 hour-period, igniting 50 new wildfires as the nation’s largest blaze burned less than 100 miles (161 kilometers) away, officials said Monday.

Firefighters and aircraft attacked the new fires before they could spread out of control. No homes were immediately threatened.

Oregon’s Bootleg Fire, the nation’s largest at 647 square miles (1,676 square kilometers), was 84% contained and is not expected to be fully under control until Oct. 1.

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BLY, Ore. (AP) — Firefighters in Oregon reported good progress in the battle against the nation’s largest wildfire, while authorities canceled evacuation orders near a major blaze in Northern California and another on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Containment of the Bootleg Fire in remote southern Oregon was up to 84% late Sunday. It was 56% contained a day earlier.

“That reflects several good days of work on the ground where crews have been able to reinforce and build additional containment lines,” fire spokesman Al Nash said.

The blaze has scorched over 646 square miles (1,673 square kilometers) since being sparked by lightning July 6 in the Fremont-Winema National Forest.

California’s Dixie Fire covered nearly 388 square miles (1,005 square kilometers) in mountains where 42 homes and other buildings have been destroyed.

The fire was 33% contained Sunday evening, and evacuation orders and warnings had earlier been lifted for several areas of Butte and Plumas counties.

The cause of the blaze was still under investigation.

Authorities warned that with unpredictable winds and extremely dry fuels, the risk of flare-ups remained high.

In recent days, lightning sparked two wildfires that threatened remote homes in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Evacuation warnings remained in place Sunday for communities along the Trinity River.

In Montana, a wind-driven wildfire destroyed more than a dozen homes, outbuildings and other structures, authorities said Sunday. Evacuations were ordered after flames jumped a highway and moved toward communities near Flathead Lake in the northwestern part of the state.

Crews also battled major blazes in northeast Washington and northern Idaho.

Nearly 22,000 firefighters and support personnel were battling 91 large, active wildfires covering 2,813 square miles (7,285 square kilometers) in mostly western states, the National Interagency Fire Center said.

A historic drought and recent heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

The U.S. Drought Monitor reported last week that while a robust monsoon has delivered drought-easing rainfall to the Southwest, critically dry conditions persist across Northern California and the Northwest, where there has been an expansion of “exceptional drought,” the worst category.

Dry conditions and powerful winds made for dangerous fire conditions in Hawaii. A wind advisory was issued Sunday for portions of Lanai, Maui and the Big Island.

A fast-moving wildfire on Hawaii’s Big Island grew to 62.5 square miles (101 square kilometers), prompting mandatory evacuation orders. Those orders — which forced thousands of residents out of their homes — were lifted Sunday evening. However, authorities told residents to remain alert.

“County officials ask all residents of the affected areas to only return home if absolutely necessary,” Hawaii County spokesperson Cyrus Johnasen said in a statement. “Smoke and other conditions may make returns unsafe for those with prior and underlying respiratory conditions.”

Local media reported at least two homes had been destroyed. Two community shelters were open for residents who weren’t able to return home, the Hawaii Red Cross said.

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