California wildfires destroy homes; winds hamper containment

By ETHAN SWOPE and JOHN ANTCZAK
Associated Press

PLACERVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Dry and windy weather is dogging firefighters’ efforts to contain destructive fires that are devouring the bone-dry forests of drought-stricken Northern California. An estimated 11,000 firefighters are on the lines of more than a dozen large wildfires Thursday. The blazes have destroyed hundreds of homes and other buildings, forced thousands of people to flee communities and filled skies with smoke. The monstrous Dixie Fire in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades has ballooned to about 1,060 square miles. To the south, there is still no official count of the number of homes destroyed when the Caldor Fire roared through the Sierra town of Grizzly Flats.