'It was a very tough day for all of our resources - there's stuff out there that we didn't want to see,' said Cagle.Īlmost 5,000 personnel are involved in the battle to tame the blaze.īut very low humidity and a parched landscape were offering ideal conditions for the fire to rage.Ĭontrol lines established by firefighters were breached overnight, with the fire growing 'explosively' in places, according to incident commanders.Īuthorities issued yet more evacuation orders on Thursday, telling residents of the towns of Taylorsville and Westwood that they needed to flee.īy late July, the number of acres burned in California was up more than 250 percent from 2020 - itself the worst year of wildfires in the state's modern history. 'We have firefighters who are getting guns pulled out on them, because people don't want to evacuate,' he said Thursday. He said firefighters were struggling with those not obeying evacuation orders, leading to their having to divert time and resources to rescue people in the path of the flames, even as they tried to deal with an extraordinary blaze. The fire swept through the town on Wednesday afternoon, where the impact was devastating, said Jake Cagle, incident management team operations section chief. Images taken by an AFP photographer in Greenville showed the fire's heat had bent street lights to the ground, with only a few structures still standing.Ī gas station, a hotel and a bar were destroyed, as well as many buildings that were more than a century old. 'We did everything we could,' California fire department spokesman Mitch Matlow told reporters. The blaze is so big that it has been generating its own weather system. Almost a fifth of that area was added overnight Wednesday into Thursday.

It has now engulfed around 500 square miles (1,300 square kilometers).

The Dixie Fire - just one of a welter of blazes wracking the western United States - has been raging in the dry forests of northern California since mid-July, part of a global warming climate crisis that has brought sweltering heat and an alarming drought to the region. 'My heart is broken for this beautiful little town.' 'I'd say the majority of downtown Greenville is completely destroyed,' tweeted wildfire photographer Stuart Palley, sharing images of the devastation.

Dixie fire evacuation orders