Jeff Chiu / AP
Firefighters spray a hose at a fire along Morgan Valley Road near Lower Lake, Calif., Friday, July 31, 2015. A series of wildfires were intensified by dry vegetation, triple-digit temperatures and gusting winds.
Published Monday, Aug. 3, 2015 | 7:22 a.m.
Updated Monday, Aug. 3, 2015 | 10:57 a.m.
LOWER LAKE, Calif. — Cooler weather helped crews gain ground Monday against a huge Northern California wildfire that tore through two dozen homes, threatened thousands more and triggered warnings to 12,000 people to flee.
The largest blaze in drought-stricken California roughly tripled in size over the weekend to 93 square miles, generating its own winds that spread the flames at a rate of thousands an acres an hour, officials said.
Lower temperatures and higher humidity allowed firefighters to contain more of the fire in the Lower Lake area about 100 miles north of San Francisco, said Capt. Don Camp of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
"We are hoping we only have to deal with winds from the weather instead of the fire creating its own winds," he said.
Numerous other wildfires in California, Washington state and Oregon took off as the effects of drought and summer heat turned the West Coast combustible. California blazes killed a firefighter last week and injured four others over the weekend in different areas.
Crews fighting the largest California blaze created buffers between some homes and the fire at its northern end, a rural area of grasslands and steep hills where many of the 6,300 threatened properties are situated.
Twelve thousand people have been forced from their homes or have been advised to leave. The fire has destroyed at least 24 homes and 26 outbuildings.
"Everyone we know that lives down there, they have nothing anymore. It's just crazy," Nikki Shatter of Clear Lake told KCAL-TV.
Additional fire crews were brought in, bringing the number of firefighters to nearly 3,000. Officials said the blaze consumed in a matter of hours about 31 square miles of shrub that hadn't burned in years.
"There's a lot of old growth-type vegetation and four years of drought to dry it all out," said CalFire spokeswoman Lynne Tolmachoff. "It was ready to go."
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy