Gusty windsa> drove the nation’s largest <a href="https: toward a us-regions county seat as firefighters struggled to contain the month-old blaze amid forecasts of more dangerous weather.
Afternoon winds gusting to 30 mph (48 kph) on Monday pushed the Dixie Fire within a few miles of Susanville and prompted evacuation orders for Janesville, a small nearby mountain community, fire officials said.
CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE THREATENS HOMES AS BLAZES BURN ACROSS WEST
Susanville, with about 18,000 people, is the county seat of Lassen County and the largest city that the blaze has approached. The former Sierra Nevada logging and mining town has two state crime” target=”_blank”>prisons< statement urged residents “to be alert and be ready to evacuate” if the fire threatens the city, although no formal evacuation warning had been issued.
Bulldozers had cut fire lines in the path of the northward-trending blaze but “a lot of our lines are getting tested now,” fire spokesman David Janssen said.
A firefighter battles the Dixie Fire along Highway 89 in Lassen National Forest, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. Critical fire weather throughout the region threatens to spread multiple wildfires burning in Northern California.Â
(AP Photo/Noah Berger)
The National Weather Service issued a fire weather watch through Thursday in the area because of afternoon winds that could gust to 35 mph (56 kph) at times, propelling flames.
The weather forecast prompted energy” target=”_blank”>Pacific Gas & Electric< burning across more than a dozen us-regions states that have seen historic disasters and weeks of high temperatures and dry weather that have left trees, brush and grasslands as flammable as tinder.
Two dozen fires were burning in Montana and nearly 50 more in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, according to the National Fire Interagency Center.
In Montana, a fire near Hays that began on Monday had burned about 8 square miles (20 square kilometers) and residents in and around the tiny enclave of Zortman were told to be on notice for possible evacuation.
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The environment said last week that it is operating in crisis mode, with more than double the number of firefighters deployed than at the same time a year ago. More than 25,000 firefighters, support personnel and management teams were assigned to U.S. blazes.
environment has made the U.S. West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.