California, Washington Wildfires Threaten Homes and Force Evacuations

Firefighters struggled to deal with three wildfires that threatened, and in one case destroyed, homes in California and Washington.

A new blaze broke out in Northern California Saturday afternoon and quickly spread across more than 250 acres of dry terrain, destroying two homes and at least four other structures in the process. 

Police issued mandatory evacuations for residents of the area, located in Nevada County just to the east of Alta Sierra, California, but those evacuations were lifted at around 10 p.m. local time.

Hundreds of miles to the south, in California's Cleveland National Forest, a much larger inferno continued grew to 1,600 acres a day after it forced the evacuation of 30 homes in Orange County's Silverado Canyon. Some 250 structures are threatened by the blaze, and an evacuation order remains in place for around 217 homes.

More than 100 homes are also without power due to the fire. That number is down from more than 400 at the peak of power outages Friday, the Orange County Register notes.

The Silverado Fire started in the backyard of a home in rural Silverado Canyon around 11 a.m. on Friday and quickly tore through the area’s drought-parched vegetation. It took just hours for the fire to grow, with temperatures reaching into the upper 90's and wind gusts of 10 to 20 mph pushing embers into dry vegetation, igniting additional flames.

According to weather.com meteorologist Linda Lam, firefighting conditions aren't likely to improve throughout the weekend, as it will remain hot and dry throughout the area.

That's bad news for the more than 700 firefighters were attempting to tackle the fire on the ground. Firefighters have struggled to fight the fire in steep, hilly terrain and high temperatures. Six firefighters have already suffered minor injuries battling the blaze, the Associated Press reports.

At least 10 helicopters and five air tankers were also assisting in trying to gain control of the blaze. As of Sunday morning, the fire was only 20 percent contained, according to the Orange County Register.

Meanwhile, in Washington, a dozen homes were under threat from a wildfire that grew to more than 1,500 acres. Not much information has been released by fire authorities about the so-called Trindad Fire, but no evacuations have yet to be issued.