Thousands Of Northern Californians Flee From The Dixie And Caldor Wildfires

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Seen in a long exposure photograph, embers light up hillsides as the Dixie Fire burns near Milford in Lassen County, Calif., on Tuesday.





Noah Berger/AP



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Noah Berger/AP



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At least 50 homes burned there but tallies were incomplete because officials had not been able to make thorough assessments of the damage in Grizzly Flats. Two people were hospitalized with serious injuries on Tuesday and about 5,900 homes and other structures were threatened by the fire.

In the Sierra-Cascades region about 100 miles to the north, the month-old Dixie Fire expanded by thousands of acres to 993 square miles — two weeks after the blaze gutted the Gold Rush-era town of Greenville. About 16,000 homes and buildings were threatened by the Dixie Fire, named for the road where it started.

«It’s a pretty good size monster, Mark Brunton, a firefighting operations section chief, said in a briefing.

«We’re not going to get this thing overnight, he said. «It’s going to be a work in progress — eating the elephant one bite at a time kind of thing — and it’s going to be a long-haul mindset. It’s a marathon and not a sprint.





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A vehicle and property that were destroyed by the Caldor Fire in Grizzly Flats, Calif.





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Destiney Barnard holds Raymond William Goetchius while stranded at a gas station near the Dixie Fire on Tuesday in Doyle, Calif. Barnard was helping Goetchius and his family evacuate from Susanville when her car broke down.





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Destiney Barnard holds Raymond William Goetchius while stranded at a gas station near the Dixie Fire on Tuesday in Doyle, Calif. Barnard was helping Goetchius and his family evacuate from Susanville when her car broke down.


Noah Berger/AP

Fire officials said early Wednesday that the fire did not push toward Susanville overnight, and that was one location where the switch in wind direction to the northeast could push flames back on themselves.

Late Tuesday, Pacific Gas & Electric began shutting off power to as many as 51,000 customers in 18 Northern California counties to prevent wildfires for the first time since last year’s historically bad fire season.

The utility said the shutoffs were focused in the Sierra Nevada foothills, the North Coast, the northern Central Valley and the North San Francisco Bay mountains and could last into Wednesday afternoon.

The nation’s largest utility announced the blackouts as a precaution to prevent gusts from damaging power lines and sparking blazes.

PG&E has notified utility regulators that the Dixie fire 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.

The Dixie Fire is the largest of nearly 100 major wildfires burning across a dozen Western states, including Alaska. The wildfires, in large part, have been fueled by high temperatures, strong winds and dry weather.

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.