California issues evacuation orders as two wildfires converge

Crews and officials battling a large fire that has incinerated more than 77,000ha in northern California braced for worse to come this week.

The swarming Dixie fire in Butte County, north of Sacramento, gained ground at the weekend and was only 21% contained by Monday, according to the California department of torestry and fire protection.

The Dixie fire joined with another blaze nearby on Saturday night, and firefighters have struggled to contain the blazes that have triggered evacuations in several communities.

“There is a high probability for the smoke columns to develop what we call a pyrophoric (cloud)," fire analyst Dennis Burn said in a video message posted on the Facebook page of Lassen National Forest.

Large fires such as the Dixie fire and Oregon’s Bootleg fire, a huge blaze that has blackened more than 165,111ha and was 46% contained as of Sunday, can at times generate their own weather, like lightning storms.

With the Dixie fire encroaching, the Plumas County Sheriff's Office issued mandatory evacuation orders for the eastern shore of Lake Almanor where “personnel are conducting door-to-door notifications.”

An evacuation shelter was established in the city of Susanville, and five other areas were placed under evacuation warnings.

In Oregon, crews battling the Bootleg fire faced the “warmest and driest” day for the next several days, fire officials said in an update.

More than 2,200 personnel were combating the Bootleg fire, officials from an inter-agency task force said.

The Bootleg fire is one of more than 86 large active wildfires in 12 states that have charred more than 566,000ha in recent weeks, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

The conflagrations in the western US, marking a heavier-than-normal start of the wildfire season, have coincided with record-shattering heat that has baked much of the region in recent weeks and caused hundreds of deaths.

Reuters