Cal Fire crews from Napa’s Greenwood Ranch Station monitor a fire, Thursday, July 30, 2015, near Lower Lake, Calif. The California National Guard is sending in a fleet of helicopters to backup firefighters battling flames raging across the northern half of the state.
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The Rocky Fire is just one of more than two dozen wildfires in the West that has some 9,000 firefighters battling blazes from the air and the ground.
Lower temperatures and higher humidity Monday allowed firefighters to contain more of the fire, said CalFire Capt. Don Camp.
On Monday afternoon, several spot fires leaped Highway 20 near the Walker Ridge area of Colusa County as a vast deployment of firefighters and materiel responded.
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 an unprecedented rate, officials said. So far it has burned 60,000 acres and was 12 percent contained as of 8 a.m. today, Herring said.
The Rocky Fire’s origin may be unknown, but the surge in wildfires that have burned through California in recent years has been widely attributed to the state’s severe drought.
“We chewed up a couple of thousand acres” in a single day but no additional homes were lost, state fire spokesman Jay Smith said.
The largest inferno, the Rocky Fire, has already incinerated 54,000 acres in three counties.
On Friday, California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency and said historic drought and hot weather “turned much of the state into a tinderbox”. It has destroyed 24 homes and is threatening 6,000 more, with 13,000 residents evacuated.
Fire crews from Connecticut helped battle fires in California in August of past year.
“This is probably one of the most complicated years that we’ve had weather-wise, in terms of making predictions about fires”, Keeley said.
Fire personnel total 2, 983, the department said.
Across California, about 25 wildfires are burning, from east of Mount Shasta to north of San Diego, as firefighters hop-scotch around the state.
Lightning strikes sprouted new fires across California.
Fire officials say the blaze, which has grown rapidly over the weekend, has shut down parts of the Pacific Crest Trail and a number of campgrounds in the area.
Ruhl, a U.S. Forest Service firefighter, was driving down a road in a vehicle by himself, scouting the area when the then-small fire suddenly expanded, U.S. Forest Information Officer Ken Sandusky said.
A separate fire, Frog Fire, continues to burn in the same area.
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SAN FRANCISCO-Wildfires blazing across Northern California and the greater Pacific Northwest have damaged forests, wildlife, and numerous residences.
