Improved weather conditions were helping crews make progress fighting two massive wildfires in Northern California, but challenges still loomed.
Officials credited aggressive firefighting, improved weather conditions and past efforts to prepare for wildfire with saving the resort town.as well, with about 755 cloud-to-ground strikes recorded in California and western Nevada between Thursday and Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
Some 3,989 personnel were assigned to the fire, which had destroyed 782 homes and 18 commercial properties since it started south of Grizzly Flats on Aug. 14. No structures have burned for several days, Slater said Saturday. The fire’s cause remained under investigation. “As they get deeper and deeper, we turn them into a containment line,” he said, meaning that officials are confident flames will not cross the line.
“We still have 38% of this fire that is uncontained, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 miles of open fire line,” Rubinstein said of the Dixie fire. “That doesn’t mean it’s a flaming front, but there is a lot of work still to be done.”The lines around the southern edge of the fire, near Quincy and Portola over to Milford, were looking good, with crews working to reinforce them and mop up, Phelps said.
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