People in the tiny mountain town of Greenville are mourning after California's largest fire incinerated much of the downtown. Authorities say at least 100 homes in and around the Sierra Nevada community burned as the wind-driven Dixie Fire exploded.
As hot, bone-dry, gusty weather hit California, the state’s largest current wildfire raged through the Gold Rush-era Sierra Nevada community of about 1,000, incinerating much of the downtown that included wooden buildings more than a century old.
“My grandmother’s dining room chairs, my great-aunt’s bed from Italy. There is a photo I keep visualizing in my mind of my son when he was 2. He’s 37 now,” she said. “At first you think, ‘It’s OK, I have the negatives.’ And then you realize, ‘Oh. No. I don’t.’” The Dixie Fire had consumed about 565 square miles , an area larger than the size of Los Angeles. The cause was under investigation, but Pacific Gas & Electric has said it may have been sparkedThe blaze exploded on Wednesday and Thursday through timber, grass and brush so dry that one fire official described it as “basically near combustion.” Dozens of homes had already burned before the flames made new runs.
“We’re seeing truly frightening fire behavior,” said Chris Carlton, supervisor for Plumas National Forest. “We really are in uncharted territory.”
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