California, Wildfire | featured news

Air tankers and helicopters flew repeatedly into a deep rim rock canyon to douse the spearhead of a massive wildfire in Northern California and stop it from driving into a nearby mountain community and Lassen Volcanic National Park....

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in three Northern California counties on Wednesday after a wildfire that has already destroyed 64 homes advanced with 75-foot flames on a tiny community at the doorstep of a national park.

Dozens of buildings, many of them likely homes, have been destroyed in recent days in a fire burning outside the Northern California community of Manton, fire officials said Tuesday night. Fire crews assessing the rural area determined Tuesday that 50 buildings had been destroyed, state fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said. The count included buildings burned since the fire began, but officials did not say when the structures were destroyed.

As hundreds of residents in Washington and California were allowed to return to homes once threatened by major wildfires, some people were told to evacuate as encroaching blazes neared Idaho towns.

Southern California wildfires are threatening dozens of homes after burning through more than 19 square miles of brush in the midst of a heat wave.

Crews made progress overnight against a Northern California wildfire that has grown to more than 4 1/2 square miles and forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes. The Wye Fire east of the community of Clearlake Oaks in Lake County was 25 percent contained early Monday morning. State fire officials say it is threatening 480 homes in Spring Valley and has already destroyed three structures. It was not immediately clear whether those were homes or outbuildings.

A fast-moving fire has burned more than 4,000 acres in Kern County, officials said Monday.

A nearly 20-square-mile California wildfire crackles through bush and brush on a remote American Indian reservation in San Diego County.

Two fires sprang up in northern Los Angeles County Thursday. An out-of-control wildfire burning north of State Route 14 was closing in on homes in the hills around Palmdale.

Calm, cool weather Thursday morning dampened a wildfire that destroyed 25 buildings north of Los Angeles, and crews were prepared for afternoon winds that could kick up the flames again, a fire spokesman said.