Thousands Flee as Dixie Fire Bellows in California

California's largest fire, the Dixie Fire, damaged about a quarter-million acres as firefighters race to keep the flames from reaching northeast to the town of Paradise, which burned in 2018 wildfires, killing 85 people.  

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At least 16,500 people have had to flee their homes recently as yet another massive wildfire continues to grow. The evacuations are becoming an unwelcome routine in a region still recovering from the 2018 Camp Fire, which left 85 people in Paradise dead and is recorded as the deadliest wildfire in the Golden State's history. 

The Dixie Fire was burning nearly 241,000 acres, or about 375 square miles, Saturday morning and was 24 per cent contained, according to the state's wildfire agency. It has destroyed at least 42 homes and threatens more than 10,000 others. 

Mandatory evacuation orders were issued several weeks ago in Butte County, California, as the Dixie Fire continued to grow explosively eastward. 

The fire has become California's largest so far this year, but has stayed within a perimeter the fire crew has built. 

Firefighters have had success holding the flames back from Paradise as the town struggles to recover from the 2018 destruction. Most of the flames consuming fields of dried vegetation continued to stay within the lines created by fire crews to contain the blaze. 

'There's nothing close to our line right now. It's all interior fuels burning,' Mike Wink, an incident commander, said in an online briefing. 

Last week, the Dixie Fire fused with the nearby Fly Fire and leveled dozens of houses and other buildings through the small community of Indian Falls in Plumas County. 

Officials believe that smoke columns created by the blaze could spawn lightning storms capable of igniting more blazes, similar to the Bootleg Fire, which has consumed more than 480,000 acres in Oregon.

Residents in nearby communities, like Twain, are either evacuating or staying in their homes in hopes of riding out the approaching blaze.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company told regulators this month that its equipment may have been responsible for sparking the flames. They were also responsible for the Camp Fire blaze that destroyed Paradise, 25 miles southeast from the current fire. 

A preliminary investigation found that the Dixie Fire broke out after a tree fell on one of the thousands of power lines that dot the state's landscape. The cause of the Dixie Fire still remains under investigation.

The company filed an incident report on July 18. It recorded the account of an employee who claims they observed blown fuses in terrain off Highway 70 and 'a fire on the ground near the base of the tree,' which he then reported to his supervisor, who then called 911. 

In the July 28 court filing, PG&E said it was 'continuing to investigate the role of its equipment' in the Dixie Fire, according to The New York Times.  

On Friday, President Biden met virtually with governors from seven Western states as 80 large fires were burning across the country destroying 1.7 million acres across 13 states. 

The West has continued to battle with increasingly more severe wildfires in recent years as climate change leads to a hotter and drier landscape. 

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They discussed how the federal government could help states with prevention, preparedness and emergency response efforts. Fire officials said that the fires have been burning earlier and more destructively than usual because of drought conditions and record heat across the region. 

Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. 

This article has been adapted from its original source.